Microsoft overhauling Outlook.com with fresh look, extra features

PanARMENIAN.Net - Those using Outlook.com's email service will soon notice a number of changes, as Microsoft moves it to a new Office 365-based infrastructure, Digital Spy reports.

The company is overhauling Outlook.com with a fresh look and extra features to help users get more done.

13 new themes will be available, as Microsoft's entire portfolio slowly morphs towards the Windows 10 look and feel.

The software maker is tackling clutter first and foremost, by recognising the emails you're likely to ignore and popping them tidily into a separate folder to view later. Clutter will learn what's what as you go along, dragging emails in or out of the folder.

Search is another area being improved, which will automatically highlight the people most frequently emailed among search suggestions. There's a refiner too, where users can filter search results based on sender, folder, date and attachment.

Outlook.com will also provide a link preview of webpages and video links, as well as inline images, allowing senders to copy and paste images directly into the body of their message.

Add-ins, which Microsoft announced at its Build event earlier this month, are arriving in the update, with Uber, Boomerang and PayPal among the first third-parties to get involved, as well as Microsoft's own products such as Bing Maps. Add-ins appear while reading or composing a message and are designed to help users complete the task at hand.

Microsoft is rolling out the updated Outlook.com in preview mode to users from today (May 21), starting with a small group initially.