back to article Microsoft makes Outlook Mac native email app a freebie

Working on a Mac but preference or necessity driving you to Microsoft's Outlook? In an unexpected move, the software giant is making its native MacOS mail client free to use, meaning you won't need a subscription to Microsoft 365 or an Office license to fire it up. The standalone app works across multiple email platforms and …

  1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
    Big Brother

    Does it slurp my data?

    What a stupid question. Lookout as part of Office does so...

    Avoid unless you really have no alternative.

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge
      Big Brother

      Re: Does it slurp my data?

      You are correct, if you set it up to work with a non-MS IMAP server then everything is synced to MS' own servers.

      No need for that unless they're slurping.

      1. VoiceOfTruth

        Re: Does it slurp my data?

        It is worse than that.

        I commented on this once before. I tested this with logs, without any shadow of a doubt. If you set up an IMAP account for $thirdparty email server, the logins come from MS and not from where you have Outlook installed. This means, 100% without a shadow of a doubt, that your password has been uploaded to MS and is available to them in clear text. I know this from the authentication methods supported on at least one of the IMAP servers - they only have LOGIN and PLAIN configured. It doesn't matter that MS may encrypt the passwords. To login, they MUST send the password in readable form.

        MS has access to your password in clear text.

  2. teomor

    Native app? No, it’s a 950MB PWA!

    1. joed

      I do not know in what way the Outlook for macOS could be considered a native app. Another Teams like electron thing - sure. The looks of Outlook web access is the 1st giveaway, another are similar limitations not present in Outlook for Windows (like no option to update DL membership etc). No idea whiy MS is trying to misstate facts, though it lines up with bs like x/do not upgrade doing the opposite during w10 push.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ad-supported, in app purchases?

    .... tacky!

  4. Abominator

    Well, Outlook is in its latest incarnation a complete bag of shite.

    It was not bad 5 years ago, but now the search is mentally challenged. Today I clicked one row and it selected another. Quite often it freezes my entire PC to mouse input. If it's not also blocked keyboard input you can do a Windows-Esc to get the task manager up to kill it.

    It really is fucking junk and I am actively looking for an alternative for the firm I work for for both Outlook and Office 365 exchange servers.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It really is fucking junk

      Some of our clients have moved from MS365 to Google Workspace, and so are we, and for what it offers it has proven to be a reliable product which has been working fine all the times MS365 had another service outage. Google Apps have also come a long way, and have replaced MS Office for our Google Workspace migrated clients.

      As for a better email client, though, that's difficult. Our clients and we use Macs and Linux, and on mac OS Apple Mail has been working better than Outlook for Mac ever did. On Linux we have some users on Evolution and others on Thunderbird (and I believe a few on other email programs). Others just use the standard Google Mail web interface. If I had to use Windows, I'd probably do the latter as well (Gmail web).

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        When I switched from Windows to Mac I switched to the native Mail app for all my email accounts. I had a copy of Outlook on a Windows VM to access an archive of previous mail, but that was rarely needed after a month or two. Unfortunately, recent changes to Exchange has meant some accounts are no longer accessible with Mail, so I need to run Outlook for them. But they’re all set to autoforward copies to an account I can access with Mail, so I only need to open Outlook when an answer is needed, and the response has to come from the Exchange account.

        One solution I can’t ever envisage is to voluntarily put anything non-public onto a system run by Google…

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      The only version of "outlook" that I haven't sworn at was "outlook express".

      1. Fred Daggy Silver badge
        Windows

        Then you're the only one.

        Then you're the only one. Because it ruined Internet Newsgroups. They were happy text only forums. Easily readable on a console. tin, nn and a few other programs IIRC.

        Yes, Spam was a problem. I would argue not a big a problem as the sudden wave of HTML embedded post that hit, with the general release of Outhouse Express. Um ... , circa Windows 98. This was the beginning of the end of the modem era, so the extra k that every post had really mattered. You might be lucky and someone included both the HTML post but hadn't disabled the feature to include plain text.

        Now newsgroups are just a cesspit of Pr0n and pirated content. While the internet is ... not much different.

        (Now where is my icon for "old". I think Father Jack would be appropriate).

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Absolutely no way

    There is no way on Earth I let a Microsoft product render my machine just as unsafe as a Windows box. My machine is quite happy with open standards based applications that integrate nicely with anything-but-Microsoft (i.e. pretty much any other groupware facility on the planet).

    Ditto for Adobe, btw - once I had a look at the network traffic that was spewing I decided to remove it all again, and that would have been a *lot* of work as it splatters itself all over the system. But that's why I make backups.

    So, nice try, Microsoft, but no cigar. And thanks, BTW, for the decision to start charging for Teams, now our customers are far more receptive to Jitsi installs. Well done, clever move :).

  6. captain veg Silver badge

    it's Exchange, not Outlook

    A typical Exchange deployment actively prevents the use of any kind of standard email client, or even WebDav for the other stuff.

    On Linux, Evolution with EWS works tolerably well, provided you (or, in my case, rather fortuitously, someone else) has set up the arcane OAuth2 parameters appropriately. If the docs don't help you here, then they haven't.

    On Android, TypeApp is astonishingly capable of connecting to Exchange and frustratingly incapable of doing anything remotely useful with that. There's a Windows version too, if you're really Outlook-averse.

    -A.

    1. karlkarl Silver badge

      Re: it's Exchange, not Outlook

      DavMail [https://davmail.sourceforge.net/] could be useful here.

      It is a proxy / bridge that connects Microsoft's dumb shit to actual industry standards like IMAP(s), SMTP(s), etc.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: it's Exchange, not Outlook

        I see its lack to talk proper open standards more as extra motivation to avoid it like the plague it is.

        It's one of the reasons I'm rather annoyed with Vivaldi for not adding carddav support to the brwoser's email client because it would have instanbtly become the most perfect all-in-one replacement for Outlook for people who DO work with Open Standards, but no, they left off a very vital part. It's a bit like building a Porsche without leaving space for an engine.

      2. captain veg Silver badge

        Re: it's Exchange, not Outlook

        I had tried that (DavMail) before without success, but your post prompted another go and... it works!

        Now I will find out if I like Thunderbird better that Evolution.

        -A.

  7. Tim99 Silver badge
    Windows

    No thank you.

    I switched to a Mac after I retired because of the scar tissue I had accumulated from MS systems like Exchange or Outlook.

    "MAPI" vs "IMAP" is typical of MS - Like "Microsoft Office XML" vs "OpenOffice.org XML". They sound "similar" so they are "the same" (snort).

    Now don't get me started on Active Directory vs LDAP (mumble, mutter)... "Nurse, my medication please" >>=====>

  8. chivo243 Silver badge
    Windows

    Double slurp!

    If you put Gmail account on the new and improved Outlook that routes via M$ servers...

    Last time I used anything Notlook was Outlook Express on a win98 box. Oh, if I knew then what I know now!

  9. Charlie Clark Silver badge

    Client not worth paying for

    Outlook for Mac has been crippled for years because not all the protocols have been enabled. This makes it more or less impossible to share calendars, etc. which is one of the main reasons for using Outlook/Exchange in the first place.

    1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

      Re: Client not worth paying for

      Outlook for Mac has been crippled for years because not all the protocols have been enabled. This makes it more or less impossible to share calendars

      This is utterly untrue.. (typing this on a Mac with O365 installed and I can quite happily share calenders..)

      1. Keith Langmead

        Re: Client not worth paying for

        Considering the latest version of Outlook for Mac doesn't support Exchange mailboxes (365 / Outlook.com fine, but no on-prem Exchange) and just shows Exchange under "Coming Soon" rather than a supported type, I think it's a bit true. You have to switch/revert to Legacy Outlook to configure an Exchange mailbox.

  10. 43300 Silver badge

    Can't wait...

    "In 2022, Microsoft released a preview of its completely overhauled Outlook for Windows clien ... the toggle to try the preview of the new Outlook for Windows will be available to customers with access to the classic Outlook for Windows and a Microsoft 365 subscription as soon as April."

    Great. Can't wait!

    How many support calls from confused users is this going to cause when they push it out to everyone?

    1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

      Re: Can't wait...

      Outlook for Windows and a Microsoft 365 subscription as soon as April

      We migrated our non-O365 Macs over to O365. One of the unintended consequences (apart from a few where the migration of the mailbox hadn't been done or had failed) was that shared mailboxes no longer worked in classic view..

      You *had* to enable the 'New Outlook' flag in order to access shared mailboxes on Exchange Online - presumably, the 'New Outlook' flag is more than just cosmetic and changes the server comms protocol.

      Took me about a day of head-scratching to work out why a small number of installs were not receiving email properly. It was because they didn't like the new outlook look and feel and so turned it off.

      1. Snapper

        Re: Can't wait...

        Couple of my older Mac clients rang up in panic after having clicked that New/Old button by mistake. One had to resort to his inhaler!

  11. anthonyhegedus Silver badge

    Can't do non-365 exchange though

    The "new" outlook, I've just found out, can't connect to an exchange server unless it's Microsoft 365. Actually it can, you can undo the 'new outlook' feature and use the 'old outlook'. That works.

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