Microsoft has announced that its Outlook app for Mac is now free to use, no longer requiring a Microsoft 365 subscription or license. Microsoft has optimized Outlook for Apple Silicon in order to improve speed and sync performance. Outlook for Mac is now available as a free download.
Outlook may be a viable alternative to Apple Mail for Mac users. Users can use Outlook with non-Microsoft services, including Gmail and iCloud email. Microsoft is also providing widget support for Outlook’s calendar feature, and a Menu Bar mini-app is coming soon.
Outlook for Mac was previously built using Microsoft’s cross-platform toolkit, which resulted in a slower and less reliable user experience. Outlook for Mac’s new native version is designed specifically for the macOS platform, resulting in improved performance and integration with other macOS features like calendar, contacts, and notifications.
Outlook for Mac is free to download from the App Store. Although Handoff between Apple devices requires the App Store release, a direct download from Microsoft is also available. Considering upgrading to the all-new Outlook for Mac? Leave your thoughts in the comments.
Microsoft already provides a free version of the Outlook client for iOS and Android, and it is currently testing a preview of a redesigned Outlook app that will replace Windows 11’s free built-in Mail and Calendar apps.
The Mac version of the app does not use the new design—it is the same Outlook for Mac app that Microsoft released in late 2020—but the company is working on “rebuilding Outlook for Mac from the ground up,” according to a blog post.
According to Microsoft, the next version of Outlook for Mac will remain a “native Mac app” rather than a Progressive Web App (PWA), as the redesigned Windows app is. This presumably means that the clients will continue to look and work slightly differently depending on which platform you’re using, but aside from the fact that it exists, we don’t know much about the new Outlook for Mac app.
The sources for this piece include an article in TheRegister.