About a week ago, Microsoft announced that it would automatically start switching Microsoft 365 Enterprise users over to the New Outlook for Windows in April 2026. It already stopped supporting legacy Outlook clients earlier this year.
However, many of those who are a fan of Classic Outlook are still having a hard time moving on from it. Many feel the new app just is not as good as the classic application and the lack of some useful features is something they complain about. One such aspect is offline mode support, ie, using and working on the New Outlook for Windows without an active internet connection, and Microsoft will soon be adding another new feature to improve this area of the software.
The company has published a new entry earlier this week on the Microsoft 365 roadmap which confirms a new feature for offline mode. After this update, users will be able to open and save attachment files from an email even when they are offline.
The entry says:
Outlook: open attachments while offline in the new Outlook for Windows
We are adding more functionality to offline mode in the new Outlook for Windows. You will now be able to open and save attachments from your email without an internet connection.
The feature was added under ID 472026 and Microsoft expects the feature to roll out in January 2025. This is around the same time when the company is replacing its Microsoft Copilot with Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat plus a new logo.
Aside from this, Microsoft had also announced a couple of other Outlook offline features that will certainly be welcomed by users. First, the ability to launch the app without an internet connection was also added, and this was followed by offline email synchronisation.