Outlook Blog

Outlook.com now lets you chat with Google friends – one more reason to make the switch

2013-05-14T13:00:00Z

We're excited to announce that you can chat with your Google friends directly from Outlook.com. With this feature, the next time you're reading an email from someone who uses Gmail, you can reply with a quick chat right from your Outlook.com inbox. And if you're working together on an Office document from SkyDrive, you can send an instant message to a Google contact with just a click. We're rolling out Google chat integration now, so look for it in your inbox over the next couple of days.

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Outlook.com: 400 million active accounts, Hotmail upgrade complete and more features on the way

2013-05-02T16:00:00Z

We're excited to announce that we've completed upgrading all Hotmail customers to Outlook.com. Coupled with the growing organic excitement for Outlook.com, this has pushed us to over 400 million active Outlook.com accounts, including 125 million that are accessing email, calendar and contacts on a mobile device using Exchange ActiveSync. We're also pleased to announce that we're adding two new features to Outlook.com: SMTP send, so it's easier to send mail from different email addresses, and deeper integration with SkyDrive.

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Skype comes to Outlook.com

2013-04-30T04:00:00Z

We're excited to announce that a preview of Skype video calling and messaging is starting to arrive in Outlook.com--making it easier to stay connected to the people you care about most. Your Skype contacts appear in your contact list, so the next time you get an email from someone, you can call them back with just a click.

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Outlook.com gets two-step verification, sign-in by alias and new international domains

2013-04-17T19:01:00Z

As announced earlier today, over the next few days we are releasing an update to Microsoft account. For people who use Outlook.com, this includes a number of new features such as two-step verification, the ability to sign in with an alias and new international domains for your email address. Read on to learn about this new feature and how to set it up.

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Updated Outlook.com app for Android devices

2013-04-16T15:00:00Z

We're excited to announce a major upgrade for our Outlook.com app for Android devices that overhauls the entire user interface and provides a number of new features. Read on to learn more and download the latest app.

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Take control of your schedule with a modern calendar experience for Outlook.com

2013-04-02T18:00:00Z

Today, we're releasing a new, modern calendar experience for Outlook.com. The Outlook.com calendar has been entirely redesigned with a modern, intuitive interface that puts you in control of your schedule. Our calendar service is faster than ever, helps you focus on the events and appointments and tasks you've added, and lets you take your calendar with you on any device. The new Outlook.com calendar is rolling out now and will be available around the world this week.

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Webinar: Sharing calendars in Outlook

2013-03-18T14:13:00Z

In a world of multiple schedules, datebooks, and timetables, Outlook can help you consolidate all of your digital calendars so you can view your entire week in one place. In this week's webinar, we'll go over ways to view and share your calendar with others. Watch the trailer or click "read more" below to view the entire webinar.

What you will learn at Tuesday's webinar

Getting two calendars on the same page
Importing an online calendar, like from...

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Details of the Hotmail / Outlook.com outage on March 12th

2013-03-14T01:15:00Z

Outlook.com left preview a few weeks ago, and as part of that, we shared that we'd start to upgrade the hundreds of millions of people using Hotmail to the new, modern Outlook.com experience. We had done multiple pilots during the preview period and learned a ton. Overall, the upgrade has been going very well - people have upgraded much faster than we had expected. The vast majority of people using our services have had a smooth experience during this time and are enjoying the new Outlook.com experience. That said, we had an issue yesterday and wanted to provide you with a deeper look at what happened.

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Get virtually unlimited attachments and get up-to-date with Outlook.com

2013-03-12T04:00:00Z

Outlook.com left preview just a few weeks ago as the world's fastest growing email service. Millions of customers continue to join Outlook.com daily. We have been humbled by some fantastic reviews and today, we wanted to share more about two features that are customer favorites: the ability to share just about anything in a single message using SkyDrive and the ability to keep your address book automatically updated with info from Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin. We think these features give you a better experience and embody the way modern email should be designed to meet the needs of modern people.

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Outlook.com leaves preview as the world’s fastest growing email service going from 0 to 60 million in just 6 months

2013-02-19T05:01:00Z

Last summer, we released a preview of Outlook.com, a new modern email service from Microsoft. Since then, we've been humbled by the fast pace of adoption with over 60 million people already actively using Outlook.com. During the same period, we've received lots of feedback and made many improvements. Today, we're excited to announce the next step in this journey: Outlook.com is coming out of preview and people everywhere can get started and give it a try at Outlook.com.

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