Microsoft confirms new Outlook for Windows will soon be able to work without internet

Microsoft first released the new Outlook for Windows app as a preview in May 2022. The company announced that it was available for personal use in September 2023. After more than a year, the company announced that the new Outlook app will finally be widely available to commercial users starting August 1, 2024.

Back in September last year, Microsoft revealed that it would soon be adding certain features to the new Outlook that would work without an internet connection. At the time, the company introduced offline support for actions like viewing and composing messages.

The first set of offline features is coming to the new Outlook for Windows. Your messages, calendar events, and contacts will be stored on your device, so you can view them even when you're not connected to the internet.

However, for some reason, the ability to locally store Mail, calendar events, and contacts was delayed until this year, despite the fact that Microsoft never actually revealed why the release of this feature set was delayed.

The good news, though, is that Microsoft is keeping its word, and the company is slowly adding more offline features to the new Outlook app, though not in the massive way that was expected. The latest entry on the Microsoft 365 roadmap involves launching an offline Outlook app, which is a welcome addition, especially for those who still prefer Classic Outlook.

Outlook: Start the app offline

This feature introduces the ability to access the new Outlook for Windows when not connected to the internet. Previously, you needed an internet connection to open or browse the new Outlook interface. Offline access was only supported when the app was running and then offline. The ability to open and restart the app when offline is introduced in this rollout.

This item is listed under ID 414516 and Microsoft claims that offline usage will start rolling out this October. However, note that this feature has actually been delayed a bit, as it was originally scheduled to be released on September 3, 2024.