We’ve known for a while that Microsoft has been working on ‘One Outlook’ or ‘Project Monarch’ with the goal of replacing the native email client on Windows 11 and 10. They plan to bring a new Outlook experience to users’ desktops. This process slowly started to take form with the release of the ‘Outlook for Windows’ app that became available to select people to test out. Now, it seems the next step is looming.
It would appear that Microsoft is getting closer to replacing the stock Mail app in Windows 10 and 11 as a ‘Preview’ button becomes available for the UWP Mail app. By clicking on the toggle, users will be redirected to download the new Outlook for Windows app. This illustrates that Microsoft is getting closer to completely replacing the stock Email app.
However, the UWP Mail app is still only in Preview mode, meaning it’s not perfect yet. There are still a few things that have to be sorted out before it can truly replace the native email app. For one, it appears that the new Outlook for Windows app is only a progressive web app. This means that even if you download and use the app, the native Mail app will still be on your device for now.
Another thing to note is that the new Outlook for Windows PWA looks much different than the UWP equivalent. The new app has an interface very similar to Outlook.com. It should be noted that despite a similar look, the Outlook for Windows app doesn’t have all the features that the Outlook desktop client has – which could be frustrating for some users. Some of these key features include support for third-party email accounts, offline support, web add-ins, and more.
If you’re someone that only uses the bare functionality when sending emails, or if you only rarely send emails, you might not notice that these features are missing. However, businesses, freelancers, or anyone active on their email accounts might find the lack of these features annoying.
Microsoft has confirmed that they’ll be adding additional features, such as support for Gmail, soon, we hope that includes the above features as well as other beneficial ones to make the app stand out.
If you want to give the new app a try, you can download it directly from the Microsoft store. It would seem that Microsoft is making a few changes amid the current changes happening in the company. We look forward to seeing how these changes affect the production of services like Outlook.
