Should You Switch to New Outlook? Pros, Cons & Missing Features from Classic Outlook (in 2025)

I've recently decided to move to "New" Outlook from Classic Outlook and wanted to detail some of the issues I've experienced.

The new Outlook for Windows was officially released on September 21, 2023.

It's designed to be a cloud-first platform and feature comparible with Outlook on the web https://outlook.office.com/ - and certainly it has the same look and feel.

New Outlook Screenshot
New Outlook Screenshot

Performance +

New Outlook is more performant than Classic Outlook - certainly emails arrive quicker and the search works far better.


Start Menu Confusion +

Not exactly a benefit but it can be a pain having both New Outlook and Classic Outlook on the same machine is that the Windows Start Menu will randomly pick one if you type "Outlook" into the start menu on Windows 11, it was confusing for me and would probably be confusing for other users.



End of Life +

The end of life for Classic Outlook isn't exactly well documented but it's looming.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/answers/questions/5554339/when-will-classic-outlook-end

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-apps/outlook/get-started/guide-product-availability


Timeline diagram for Classic Outlook
Timeline diagram for Classic Outlook


Attachments -

In Classic Outlook attachments would appear from files that you've recently used. Save a document as a PDF and then it would be ready to attach in Outlook, this does not work propertly in New Outlook.

Classic Outlook adding attachment
Classic Outlook adding attachment

Marking Emails as Read -

In Classic Outlook you can disable marking emails as read in the preview pane - and get emails to open in a new window when you double click them. 

These are then immeditely marked a read.

New Outlook cannot do this so you have to manually press CTRL+Q to mark them as read.


Opening ICS Files -

New Outlook handles ICS files in a really unintuitive way. I've already blogged about this here.

https://david-homer.blogspot.com/2025/09/nothing-happens-when-opening-ics-file.html


Calendar Scrolling -

In Classic Outlook you can use the mouse wheel to scroll through the calendar and position your current date at the top of the calendar window seeing the next month's worth of events. New Outlook forces to you select the month you want to see - the mouse wheel doesn't work at all, you have to use the UI controls.


PST Files -

There is still limited support for PST files in New Outlook and Classic Outlook must still be installed to use this functionality.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/4717071/importing-classic-outlook-pst-to-new-outlook-on-ne


Zoom Levels -

In Classic Outlook if you change the zoom level (either intentionally or by accident) you are shown the current zoom level and can easily correct it.


New Outlook doesn't show the zoom level so you can accidently change it and not realise, also there's no zoom slider in the preview pane.

You can, however, access the zoom controls in the View tab on the Ribbon and reset it there. Weirdly Copilot doesn't offer this as a solution.




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