Microsoft accidentally kills epic Outlook email threads Microsoft has managed to break a very basic Outlook function – the ability to include the previous email in a reply. The issue, which afflicts Outlook for Mac, was introduced in version 16.110, build 26061317, which rolled out to users last week. Before the update, the original message appeared in the reply window. After the …
Guess not. Clearly there was no email chain associated with QA on this software patch.
Beyond the obvious, this is a missed opportunity. If someone could please break Outlook in such a way that geniuses hitting "Reply All" and saying, "You shouldn't be doing Reply All" get some of their dangly bits recycled as mouse balls
I use a defer delivery rule for exactly this, so that if I hit reply all by accident I have a 3 minute window to correct it and deal with any other issues. Work started pushing New Outlook but once I tried it I found defer delivery doesn’t appear let alone work on New Outlook rules. I switched back and then a few days later everyone received a survey from IT about Outlook. I explained that I wasn’t switching because the New one lacked that vital feature amongst others and the GUI sucked massively.
IT support contacted me to tell me that in a few years Classic Outlook won’t exist and I’ll have to use New Outlook. I replied that maybe by then they’ll have got New Outlook working as well as Classic and it won’t be missing so many blasted features nor look as horrible.
I replied that maybe by then they’ll have got New Outlook working as well as Classic and it won’t be missing so many blasted features nor look as horrible.
To quote the great sage Wayne Campbell: "...yeah, and monkeys might fly out of my butt!"
In other words, I admire your optimism.
Work started pushing New Outlook
(Former Mac admin here - very glad about the 'former' bit now)
We had issues on the Mac with Outlook. 'New' Outlook came out but staff hated it and kept using the old one. Then they started raising tickets that 'their email doesn't work'.
Microsoft had (silently) changed things in Exchange Online such that the old Mac Outlook would no longer send or receive mail. It would *look* like it had been sent (got moved to the Sent folder and all, but never actually went. Inbox itself would never populate with new emails, despite the 'send/receive' status was 'OK'.
Switch to 'New' Outlook and it all started working normally again. People had to resend emails that they had sent during the dead time but incoming emails were now working fine.
I spoke to our MS rep - who hadn't got a clue about anything Mac related. Neither did his boss, nor her boss. They escalated it to the Mac Office team (in the US) and didn't hear back, despite multiple attempts to get an answer.
When the did (finally) get a response, it was the MS version of "ticket closed, working as designed".
I can confirm that Outlook for Mac is indeed still broken. My understanding is that it's mainly a web-client and suffers from the same limitations, because the widgets and controls from Outlook for Windows have never been ported. Still, at least in the "new" version I can access shared calendars… which is pretty much all I use it for. Outlook has always been a terrible mail client, and I much prefer MailMate.
It is MicroSlop's true position to break everything that runs on the client side to force their SaaS.
You don't make updates with broken functionality like this by mistake. It is truely intentional!
One of the companies I do hardware repair for has all ready stated that in a little more than a year from now the will be MicroSlop free, everywhere. And, they made sure that MS was informed of that fact.
MicroSlop doesn't care, as long as the profits continue they will keep playing the game because enough SMB's exist to keep the money rolling in.
"Thunderbird for the win"
Apple Mail for the win!
If you don't need more than a basic email application, Apple Mail works just fine. Proton mail is good for those that worry about security. Thunderbird is an excellent alternative. All options considered, Outlook is scraping the bottom of the barrel and finding what's under that.
Office is a mess. Inconsistent user interface, lack of common keyboard shortcuts, no standard UI, a mix of web -only apps along with desktop apps with 1990's era dialog boxes. Time for a full revamp.
I don't mind the new Outlook so much. However it's terribly buggy. Meanwhile the classic app gets new bugs every month. On most computers I just use OWA.
