Outlook Web, aka the new Outlook app for Windows 11, has received a few more offline-related upgrades. These new features include the ability to add multiple recipients to replies, access attachments offline, better visibility of shared mailboxes, and a few more small improvements.
I installed the most recent version of Outlook in the stable channel, and not all the announced features were available. It could be in a gradual rollout phase, but we’re excited about improved offline functionality. Outlook can already save the personal data from email, calendar, and notes for offline usage.
But accessing attachments in the offline mode isn’t possible. When you try to do so, you get an error message indicating that the preview didn’t work as expected. It’s because Outlook doesn’t save the attachment files locally.
For example, when I tried to open an attachment and I was not connected to the internet, Outlook showed an error “Something went wrong while the document preview was being created” and asked me to try again. But there’s an option called Save as, which just saves the page (not the expected behaviour).
When the update fully rolls out, you’ll be able to view the Outlook attachments without connecting to the internet. Microsoft says everyone will have access to the feature in September 2025. Also, Windows Latest noticed that now whenever you try to open the available email, the attachment file will open in the preview panel.
The second major change is the ability to send mail to multiple accounts when using the reply box. Like Gmail, you can now add more recipients to the reply box to send the mail to multiple accounts. It’s a small yet necessary change that was missing from this new Outlook version.
New search shortcut
Ctrl + F is the default search shortcut in apps to find text, but you can’t do that in Windows 11’s mail client until now. If you used the shortcut while trying to open an email, it would launch the reply box. But the new update will open a search that supports text input. You can use it to locate important text without manually reading each line.
The folders that appear below the mail options in the app now offer simplified access to shared mailboxes. There’s a new Shared with me settings page in the mail section that you can use to adjust the appearance.
Outlook isn’t stopping anytime soon and will continue to add more features, including some user demands as well. The initial lack of offline support sparked a lot of controversy, but Microsoft patiently heard the feedback and is trying to reduce the feature gap.
