Microsoft Partners Prepare For Automatic Switch To New Outlook

‘Our goal with this change is to give users an opportunity to try new Outlook as millions of users already have,’ Microsoft says in a message to IT administrators reviewed by CRN.

Microsoft solution providers tell CRN they are ready for the tech giant’s upcoming dates for automatically switching Outlook users to the new version of the email and calendar application —with January the start of automatic switching for small and midsize businesses and April 2026 marking the start for Microsoft 365 for Enterprise users.

The Redmond, Wash.-based vendor promises IT administrators at least 12 months’ notice before it implements the opt-out stage for users in managed enterprise plans, according to Microsoft. Users will still have the ability to revert to classic Outlook during the opt-out stage.

And Microsoft will support existing installations of classic Outlook through perpetual licenses until at least 2029.

“Our goal with this change is to give users an opportunity to try new Outlook as millions of users already have,” Microsoft said in a message to IT administrators reviewed by CRN. “New Outlook gives users the most modern experience with Copilot features, theming and a wave of valuable time-saving features like Pinning and Snoozing mails.”

Microsoft New Outlook Migration

CRN has reached out to Microsoft for comment.

Microsoft plans to make admin-controlled migration to new Outlook available in Group Policy Objects, Cloud Policy and Intune at a future date, according to the vendor, which has more than 400,000 channel partners worldwide.

John Snyder, CEO of Durham, N.C.-based Net Friends, told CRN in an interview that he and his team plan to toggle the migration off on a per-user or per-company level and leave the actual switch up to the customer.

Although he hasn’t heard of a strong resistance to using new Outlook, Snyder said that end users usually don’t like sudden changes to applications they use frequently such as email, and rebuilding any shortcuts or customizations a user likes from classic Outlook will take time.

"Microsoft should be mindful that their customers are not just resistant to change but also are more sensitive to changes on an installed application [compared with web-based apps],” Snyder said. “Few people are eager to start their new year off relearning parts of their email program.”

Robby Hill, CEO of Florence, S.C.-based HillSouth, told CRN in an interview that his company has been mentioning the migration in its newsletters for customers, although not everyone in a customer organization reads those emails and could still find themselves surprised by an automatic switch to new Outlook.

While HillSouth won’t have to do any work to enable the migration, he expects inquiries from some of those surprised users.

“Nothing can stop the expected flood of tickets we would expect from a major overhaul” like with Outlook’s user interface, Hill said.

He hopes Microsoft provides plenty of communication to users as a way to lessen inquiries to HillSouth and other solution providers.

Microsoft made the new Outlook generally available in August. Personal Outlook accounts started switching automatically to the new version in October.

The vendor started rolling it out to SMB users with a Business Plan in the “beta channel” in November, according to Microsoft. January marks the start of automatic switching from classic Outlook to the new version for users on “current channel” with a business plan.

Microsoft has promised a series of in-application notifications before the switch for these users. They can also switch back to classic Outlook whenever they want. IT administrators and users can turn off the automatic switch.

April 2026 will mark the start of automatic switching for M365 for Enterprise users. Users can switch back to classic, but they might automatically get switched to new Outlook again with a future rollout.

New Outlook Vs. Classic Outlook

New Outlook comes with a host of new capabilities that are not supported in classic Outlook to help motivate users to switch. Those capabilities include:

The ability to “edit this and all following events in a series” in calendar
Scheduling in-person events
Meeting recaps and the ability to preserve declined meetings
Folders for favorite groups, people and categories
Category favorites, pin messages and the ability to undo sent mail
Contact categories
In search, calendar and file answers as well as online archive results in the primary mailbox
File and Teams tabs
A Teams Meeting chat integration

Rollout started this month for work hours and location information in new Outlook’s agenda view —a capability not supported in classic.

However, new Outlook still lacks some of the features of classic Outlook, according to Microsoft. Capabilities listed as “under investigation” for new Outlook even though they are available in classic include:

Exchange on-premises and on-premises Active Directory Federation Services
Virtual desktop infrastructure support
Delay send rule for mail
Cloud instances for accounts under Microsoft 365 Government Community Cloud High, M365 Department of Defense and M365 operated by 21Vianet

Capabilities not supported in new Outlook even though they are already part of classic include:

Custom forms, address book, mail voting buttons and SharePoint calendar sync
Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
Visual Basic Application macros
Extensibility for Component Object Model add-ins, content forms, Outlook Object Model and Messaging Application Programming Interface

Capabilities slated to start rolling out to new Outlook in January even though they are already in classic include:

Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions signing and encryption
Adding shared mailboxes as accounts
Favorite shared folders

And capabilities just listed as “upcoming” in new Outlook by Microsoft without a firm rollout date even though they are already part of classic include multiple mail profiles, mail merge, shared mailbox archives and the ability to reply by Teams chat.