Microsoft’s Outlook and email applications on Windows, Mac and the web are undergoing major changes in the coming months as part of the company’s “One Outlook” initiative. But why wait? You can get a preview of how your Outlook experience will transform now.
At the end of this year, you can expect Microsoft to standardize the user experience on Outlook apps on Mac, Windows and the web, as well as Mail & Calendar apps on Windows 10. So by 2022, each of these apps will be made the transition to a new “Monarch” client, which means that you will use the same application on all platforms.
According Windows Central, Microsoft says the new Monarch client will add more OS-level integrations for Windows and Mac, including “offline storage, sharing targets, notifications”, so that the new Outlook looks like a native application on each desktop operating system or web browser you use.
Implementation of these changes will be slow, but you can get a preview of the new cross-platform interface by installing the new Mail Progressive Web App (PWA) today.
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How to install Outlook PWA on Edge Chromium:
- Go to outlook.com.
- Click “…” to open the menu
- Go to Applications, click “Install this website as an application.”
- The PWA will open as soon as the installation is complete.
In Google Chrome:
- Open outlook.com in a new tab.
- click on the “+” at the right end of the URL bar (it may take a few moments to appear. Try clicking the URL bar if it is not showing).
- Click “Install” when solicited.
Compared to the Mail and Calendar apps on Windows 10, Outlook PWA’s appearance is much simpler. It does not have the visual customization options you can use to adjust Outlook in wild ways, but it is much cleaner and includes the same email features, as well as calendar views and to-do lists. The similarity should make the transition to PWA – or eventually the new user interface for the various Outlook and Mail applications later this year – much easier.
Outlook PWA also includes shortcuts for easy access to other MS applications such as Word, OneDrive, One Note, Meet and Skype. You can even manage your Xbox Live and Skype accounts in profile settings, if they use the same email address.
This is already a much more robust surface-level integration in the MS ecosystem, and I’m curious to see how it will expand when Monarch launches in 2022.