Back in September 2023, Microsoft revealed that it was adding certain features to the New Outlook for Windows app that would work without an internet connection. At the time, the company introduced offline support for mail actions and compose.
At the time, the company had hinted that more offline features would be added in future updates, as it stated, "The first set of offline capabilities in the new Outlook for Windows. Mail, calendar events, and contacts will be stored on your device, so you can view them even when you're not connected to the internet."
For some reason, though, the ability to locally store Mail, calendar events, and contacts was delayed until the company finally reiterated it earlier this year in June. However, Microsoft never really disclosed why the release date was pushed back.
That was not the only offline New Outlook feature Microsoft pushed back though. The company had also delayed another one which is related to email sync that will let users choose the number of days of email and attachments they want to download to their device for offline usage.
The feature was initially added to the Microsft 365 roadmap towards the end of November last year under feature ID 189809 and the rollout was planned for June this year. That did not happen and Microsoft updated the entry with the same feature under the new ID 412619. It says:
Outlook: Choose how many days of emails sync to your device for offline usage
With the new sync window, you can choose how many days' worth of emails and attachments you want to download to your device so you can always access them even while offline.
However, the delay does make sense given that the feature would be useless unless a user was able to launch the New Outlook app offline. Microsoft has finally started working on such a feature and we covered it recently in our dedicated piece here.
Microsoft says the preview for the new offline email sync feature would be available towards the end of this year in December and the rollout would start in January 2025.
With these two new features, the New Outlook for Windows it seems is finally getting to the Classic Outlook level. The latter for example, allows syncing emails for offline usage for 12 months by default but there is also the option to store "All" mails.
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