Category: Microsoft Outlook

Microsoft is one of the best developers when it comes to frequent and meaningful updates to their swath of Android apps in the Play Store.  The Redmond, Washington company has released several updates to some of their apps as part of the normal monthly Office 365 updates.  All of these updates are now in the Play Store so you should be able to check for the update now or, if you have auto updates enabled, you likely have already been updated.

Outlook for Android has a great new feature that frankly I wish Gmail had:  Do Not Disturb.  It’s no mystery on what it does.  It prevents email notifications from showing up on your phone.  It works just like the DND feature in Android itself, meaning you can set it up for a specific amount of time or until you manually turn it back off.  Also, in Outlook, you can now delete contacts directly in the app.

Microsoft has released a new update to Outlook for Android that brings a much improved search experience in the email, calendar and contacts app.  Version 2.2.147 landed in the Google Play Store on Friday and by now should be out to most reader’s accounts and available to for update.

The biggest change in the app is the improved navigation bar.  It is much more simple in this release, providing one-tap access to mail, calendars and to the improved search feature.  The navigation bar remains at the bottom of the display has it has for some time now but looks cleaner.

A new update to the Microsoft Outlook app is rolling out for Android (and iOS) users that brings a long requested feature to the app.  The new build is version 2.2.118 for those keeping score at home and when you update to it, you will finally have calendar attachment support.

The feature brings the mobile version of Microsoft Outlook more in line with the desktop versions in that you will be able to attach items to a calendar invite and be able to read attached content inline on invites sent to you.

When it comes to Personal Assistants on phones, we tend to think of Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa most often while iOS users tend to think of Siri.  But Microsoft Cortana slowly and quietly continues to develop and made inroads on both Android and iOS.  A new report suggests that Cortana is about to go even further into both platforms.

The Verge is reporting that Microsoft is working on integrating Cortana in Outlook for both Android and iOS.  This would allow for things like emails to be read to you while you are on-the-go but could also allow for dictation of emails.

Microsoft has released an update to Outlook for Android that brings a number of improvements to the calendar portion of the app.  The update is version 2.2.91 and should be coming to those have the app installed over the course of the next few days.

The biggest changes in this update are the ability to set events on your calendar as free or busy as well as being able to mark events as private when you are sharing your calendar.  This is most often used in corporate environments but can also impact personally shared calendars too.

A new update to Microsoft Outlook for Android is rolling out, bringing a new one-tap handling of spam email and your junk folder.  The updated build is version 2.2.88 for those keeping score at home and is in the process of rolling out to the Google Play Store.

With this update, you will now be able to mark a message as spam when it comes into your inbox as well as empty your junk mail folder with a single tap.  Previously if you wanted to do this, it involved marking the message and then having to navigate to your junk mail folder to delete the message for good.  Microsoft has now streamlined it, making it faster and easier.