What you need to know
- Microsoft will soon move the location of apps like Mail, Calendar, People, and To Do within Outlook for the web.
- These apps will soon appear on the left side of the screen, as opposed to the bottom of Outlook as they do now.
- Microsoft has tested this new experience with users since March 2022, but it will soon become the default experience.
Microsoft will soon swap the location of apps within Outlook for the web. At the moment, Mail, Calendar, People, and To Do appear at the bottom of the menu within Outlook. Soon, the default experience will see these apps appear on the left side of the web app. This aligns the look of Outlook with Teams and Office.com when it comes to switching between apps.
Current Channel users have been able to try out the new experience since March 2022. Until now, people have had to opt in to try out the new look. Soon the left-side layout will be the default.
“This update will provide a consistent experience across Outlook, Teams, and Office.com for switching apps and it creates room in the UI for more apps to integrate with Outlook,” explained Microsoft in a Tech Community post (opens in new tab). “You can easily launch popular apps like To Do, Yammer, Bookings, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint without leaving Outlook, with more to come. You can also customize which apps you see by right-clicking on your preferred apps to pin them.”
Microsoft noted that since the new layout adds functionality, that users will not have the option to revert to the previous navigation experience.
The lack of an option has rubbed some users the wrong way. “I would like to request that you find an option for those of use that don’t use those other apps/features and like the fact that having the Mail, Calendar, People, Task at the bottom allows for more room in the active window I am using for mail purposes,” said terrygage in the comments section of the Tech Community post. Multiple other people echoed similar sentiments.
