Microsoft Outlook

What hackers pick instead

• Mozilla ThunderbirdA long-lived, stable desktop email client with a deep feature set, offline local mail and RSS, though critics point to a cluttered UI, confusing settings and weak search.210recommend
• Apple MailPeople recommend Apple Mail for its native macOS and iOS integration and simple everyday reliability, though critics often report search and Gmail sync problems.57recommend
• Penguin MailOpen-source Linux email client that people use as a daily driver and find polished; critics mainly object to the built-in AI chat window and the project's young age.14recommend
• GNOME EvolutionFree email client for GNOME and Linux that works with Exchange and Microsoft 365 and has fast search. Some report past bugs and uncertainty about whether they are fixed.13recommend
• K-9 MailFree Android email client that works with IMAP and PGP and is still maintained. One critic worries it will decline over time.13recommend

Every quote

The 40 most detailed of 620 comments. Each links to the original.

1. The desktop outlook (the real one, not the 'new' one which is just the web version) is much better of course as it searches locally

   Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Bye Bye Big Tech: How I Migrated to an Almost All-EU Stack (and Saved 500€/Year)”

2. Not being able to keep Slack and Outlook open at the same time seems like a pretty significant productivity hindrance to me.

   Mixed · Mar 2026 · in “Apple Introduces MacBook Neo”

3. A nice thing is that outlook can simply sum up the reactions and show them along the message in a non-intrusive way.

   Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Stop 'reactions' to email by adding a postfix header (2024)”

4. Can actually work pretty well but the implementation had been successfully eroded over last decade or more.

   Mixed · Apr 2026 · in “Artemis computer running two instances of MS outlook; they can't figure out why”

5. I came to like the feature. It's even visible at two places: in the thread list and on an individual email.

   Mixed · Nov 2025 · in “Stop 'reactions' to email by adding a postfix header (2024)”

6. heavily vested in SharePoint, OneDrive, OneNote, Outlook, etc. specifically for their enterprise controls

   Mixed · Sep 2026 · in “Dots: Always-on agents”

7. those reactions are a lot less annoying than short mails expressing the same thing on mailing lists

   Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Stop 'reactions' to email by adding a postfix header (2024)”

8. Since Classic Outlook was developed in the glory days of OLE2.0, it's got OLE Automation baked in.

   Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Microsoft new Outlook takes 10 seconds to do what Outlook Classic does instantly”

9. I can load and unload shared mailboxes on demand and I stopped worrying about cache mode settings

   Mixed · Jun 2026 · in “Microsoft new Outlook takes 10 seconds to do what Outlook Classic does instantly”

10. the ability to have mail in it's own window that I can easily open messages in, is miles better.

    Recommends · Jul 2026

11. those of use locked away in enterprise fiefdoms with Outlook can make use of pinned messages

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “The Napoleon Technique: Postponing Things to Increase Productivity”

12. I'm sitting here on a Mac with Teams, Outlook and Slack open and there's 18 gig of RAM gone

    Mixed · Mar 2026 · in “MacBook Neo”

13. I think that Outlook was pretty great up until they started the cloud editions backing M365

    Mixed · Mar 2026 · in “LotusNotes”

14. the group scheduling and calendar experience is pretty much the best you're going to find

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Microsoft new Outlook takes 10 seconds to do what Outlook Classic does instantly”

15. My Outlook mass email sysadmin scripts will have to be pried from my cold dead hands

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Copy-Item is slower than File Explorer”

16. for all of their problems they do know what governments are actually solving for

    Mixed · Apr 2026 · in “2,100 Swiss municipalities showing which provider handles their official email”

17. I've yet to see FLOSS that matches that aspect of Outlook and o365/Exchange

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “The state of Schleswig-Holstein is consistently relying on open source”

18. Old Outlook still works and is supported until ~2029. We still use it here.

    Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “Artemis computer running two instances of MS outlook; they can't figure out why”

19. Outlook Classic, doing the same job, uses around 117 MB to 148 MB at idle

    Mixed · Jun 2026 · in “Microsoft new Outlook takes 10 seconds to do what Outlook Classic does instantly”

20. From my experience using Outlook, they could keep the Outlook team for bugfixes only and still have enough work for the next 5 years just improving/fixing the classic version.

    Criticizes · Jun 2026 · in “Microsoft new Outlook takes 10 seconds to do what Outlook Classic does instantly”

21. Almost every time I use Outlook, I have to rewrite my first sentence because half of it was typed before Outlook was finished doing whatever it does in the background.

    Criticizes · Jun 2026 · in “Microsoft new Outlook takes 10 seconds to do what Outlook Classic does instantly”

22. unresolved bug when a certain email is both coming from an on-prem exchange and at the same time is used as a registered account at Microsoft

    Criticizes · Jun 2026 · in “Microsoft new Outlook takes 10 seconds to do what Outlook Classic does instantly”

23. Outlook, Teams, and other all show up as msedgewebview2.exe, so you also don't know which app is consuming gigs of memory doing nothing.

    Criticizes · Sep 2026 · in “Rust is tier-1 language at Microsoft”

24. The stupid thing refuses to respond after switching to a diff network or SSID till it's completed some synchronization of some kind.

    Criticizes · Jun 2026 · in “Microsoft new Outlook takes 10 seconds to do what Outlook Classic does instantly”

25. moved the "Create Email/meeting" buttons in Outlook mobile and stuck the Copilot button there so that you will hit it accidentally

    Criticizes · Mar 2026 · in “Microsoft: Copilot is for entertainment purposes only”

26. products like Outlook used to good at satisfying most people out-of-the-box, but have become less good with recent releases

    Criticizes · Feb 2026 · in “Netflix Animation Studios Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron”

27. For some reason, in 2012 something like Slack or Outlook or an IDE was exactly as performant on a PC with 8GB and 2 cores

    Criticizes · Aug 2026 · in “Get your Windows license refund”

28. New outlook also pre loads ads and it takes a few seconds for the paid verification to go through before the ads go away

    Criticizes · Jun 2026 · in “Microsoft new Outlook takes 10 seconds to do what Outlook Classic does instantly”

29. The new interface takes like 1 gb of RAM when in use, agaisnt 200mb of the traditional one, while offering less options.

    Criticizes · Feb 2026 · in “Microsoft is walking back Windows 11's AI overload”

30. Outlook has been an embarrassment for years. Poor defaults, bugs that have existed for years, and sub-par performance.

    Criticizes · Jun 2026 · in “Microsoft new Outlook takes 10 seconds to do what Outlook Classic does instantly”

31. I've got two versions of Outlook on my computer, neither of which is as quick to load as Thunderbird was 20 years ago.

    Criticizes · Jul 2026 · in “Gemini Robotics 2 brings whole body intelligence to robots”

32. the new Outlook uses between 490 MB and 636 MB of RAM while idle

    Criticizes · Jun 2026 · in “Microsoft new Outlook takes 10 seconds to do what Outlook Classic does instantly”

33. Outlook Classic could hardly have ever been considered fast.

    Criticizes · Jun 2026 · in “Microsoft new Outlook takes 10 seconds to do what Outlook Classic does instantly”

34. running the new outlook in an actual web browser (through outlook.office.com) is waaay faster than the heavy (heh) client

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Microsoft new Outlook takes 10 seconds to do what Outlook Classic does instantly”

35. Still not sure why they'd use Outlook, but I guess it's easier than retraining astronauts on Alpine or Mutt.

    Mixed · Apr 2026 · in “Artemis computer running two instances of MS outlook; they can't figure out why”

36. Outlook supports having multiple arbitrary email addresses as well as allowing login from only one of them.

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Data Leak Exposes 149M Logins, Including Gmail, Facebook”

37. I think my outlook client might be the most ideal interface once we get some of the rough edges sorted out.

    Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “Show HN: What should the GUI for AI agents look like?”

38. I spend a lot of time saving Outlook messages to the file system and storing them for reference later.

    Mixed · Nov 2025 · in “I built a faster Notion in Rust”

39. MS Outlook was the 'gotcha', but then they got the web version of MS Outlook working acceptably.

    Mixed · Aug 2026 · in “Get your Windows license refund”

40. they renamed the real native Outlook app as Classic Outlook to feel old-fashioned and outdated

    Mixed · Nov 2025 · in “Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper”