Microsoft’s New Outlook for Mac to Add Support for Retention Policies and Reactions

Microsoft has announced some important updates that should improve the new Outlook for Mac experience that launched in Fall 2020. First of all, the new Outlook for Mac is getting support for retention policies this month.

Retention policies allow organizations to control how long messages will be saved within an Outlook folder. Microsoft says this release will let IT admins apply this policy to all emails in the users’ mailbox. The Microsoft 365 listing suggests that the retention policies feature should become generally available for all macOS users by the end of this month.

“If you already defined the retention policy on your tenant and use that in Outlook Windows and Outlook on the web, now you could see them available in New Outlook for Mac on the message list view context menu and message item context menu,” the company explained on the Microsoft 365 Admin Center.

Outlook for Mac to gain email reactions and handoff feature

Another important addition in the new Outlook for Mac is support for email reactions. With this feature, Outlook users will be able to quickly express their emotions without having to send incremental emails. Microsoft notes the email client will let users choose from a variety of reactions, including a thumbs-up, heart, laugh, shed a tear, and celebrate. Reactions could be a handy way that lets multiple people show if they like or dislike an idea.

Lastly, the Outlook for Mac app is getting a new handoff feature next month. Handoff is part of Apple’s Continuity features that enables users to transfer activities between multiple devices. This capability could be helpful in situations where Outlook users start writing an email on their iPad and then switch to a nearby Mac or iPhone (or vice versa).

According to the Microsoft 365 roadmap, the email reactions and handoff features could arrive as soon as August 2022, but that date is subject to change.