Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Microsoft upgrades its Outlook apps for improved after-hours working

There has been a 52% jump in the number of instant messages sent between 6 p.m. and midnight, according to Microsoft. A lot of the increase is happening on phones, hence Microsoft’s emphasis on its iOS and Android apps in its recent round of Outlook updates.

One of these updated app features is called “Meeting Insights” for Outlook for Android. With Meeting Insights, the Outlook Android app will show messages and files relevant to your meeting right in the event details on your calendar. Meeting Insights pairs well with enhancements for suggested replies on both mobile and Outlook on the web.

The Outlook mobile feature now allows you to see suggestions to send your availability or schedule a meeting when someone wants to meet with you.

Image used with permission by copyright holder

There is also an improved one-tap-to-join online meetings feature. While Microsoft Teams and Outlook work together to help make it easy to join meetings, it has now been updated to support Zoom and Webex, so you’ll be able to join those meetings more easily, right from your email. You’ll also be able to use a new default setting to automatically create meetings online, without having to worry about sharing a link.

The final new feature for Outlook on mobile is the ability to easily create a task from a mobile email message. Just highlight the item to create a task on both mobile and web.

People on Android will also now get the same Play My Emails feature that iOS users have long enjoyed. It leverages Cortana to allow you to listen and respond to your email while you’re busy doing other things.

Elsewhere, there are new features on the web version of Outlook. For those with busy days, Microsoft is making it easier to see the details for a meeting right in the Outlook inbox, without having to switch to the Calendar section of the experience. Users will be able to toggle between messages and meeting details, see the attendee list and who is attending the meeting, and even add an online meeting, right from above an email.

They will also gain the ability to add a personal calendar to a work calendar on Outlook on the web. This ensures that if you have a business event that clashes with your personal events, your schedule will be shown as busy, with no details or information available to event organizers. There’s even a new Snooze email feature, which will allow you to mute emails that you don’t want to reply to right away.

Editors' Recommendations

Arif Bacchus
Arif Bacchus is a native New Yorker and a fan of all things technology. Arif works as a freelance writer at Digital Trends…
You can finally move your WhatsApp chats from Android to iOS
WhatsApp and Telegram app icons.

Moving WhatsApp chats from Android to iOS has been a painful task for years. But not anymore, as Apple and WhatsApp have made the process a whole lot easier. Starting today, Apple is adding a feature that allows you to move chats between the two platforms. The feature is a part of Apple’s existing “Move to iOS” Android application. It’s worth noting that the feature is currently available for beta users only, so non-beta users might have to wait for a week or two as it's rolled out in phases.

This is a big move since 2 million people use WhatsApp and, until now, there wasn’t an official method to move conversations between Android and iOS. There have been third-party solutions here and there, but nothing officially backed by Apple or WhatsApp. With the feature becoming available, users will be able to move their chats swiftly from Android to iOS.

Read more
Microsoft has finally brought Teams to its own app store
Microsoft Teams in Together mode on a laptop.

Microsoft has now brought the Microsoft Teams app download to the Microsoft Store, providing a new installation method for Windows 10 and Windows 11 users other than a manual download.

Microsoft Group Program Manager, Mik Chernomordikov shared the news on Twitter on Monday, while publications including OnMSFT and Thurrott have confirmed that the software is near similar to the manual install version of Microsoft Teams, which you can get from Microsoft's website. The current version is (1.5.00.11163.), OnMSFT noted.

Read more
Did Apple just forget about its brand-new Studio Display?
The Mac Studio and Studio Display on a desk.

Apple neglected to include the Studio Display in its latest iOS update, and the consequences were pretty bad: A lot of users ran into an error when the monitor tried to download the patch.

The issue came to light when Apple updated iOS to 15.4.1 and stopped supporting the previous version.

Read more