The Reality of Microsoft’s New Outlook: Performance Challenges and Future Outlook

At CTS Group, we stay informed about the latest developments in technology that impact productivity and user experience. Recently, discussions around Microsoft’s latest Outlook for Windows have highlighted some critical performance issues that users should be aware of.

Microsoft’s new Outlook, built on WebView2 (a Chromium-based web engine), aims to modernise email management on Windows. While it has made strides in certain areas, such as faster launch times and improved features, it still faces significant challenges, particularly with notification handling.

Performance Discrepancies: 

• When clicking a Windows 11 notification for a new email, Outlook Classic opens that specific email almost instantly.

• In contrast, the new Outlook takes around 10 seconds to load the email after clicking the notification, despite opening the app itself in about 5 seconds.

• This delay is due to the web-based architecture of the new Outlook, which involves multiple browser processes, increased memory usage (up to four times more RAM than Outlook Classic), and higher CPU consumption.

Why the Delay?

• Built on WebView2, the new Outlook relies on browser-like processes that initialize each time you interact with it.

• The app must load, authenticate, and render content through this web engine, which introduces latency.

• Microsoft has acknowledged these issues and is testing new APIs to improve performance, but significant improvements are still underway.

The Outlook Landscape:

• Windows 11 ships with both Outlook Classic (Win32 desktop app) and the new Outlook, with Microsoft actively pushing users toward the newer version.

• Despite recent updates adding features like better folder search, shared mailbox access, and calendar support, performance issues, especially around notifications, remain a concern.

• Notably, Outlook Classic still outperforms the new version in speed and resource efficiency, and will be supported until April 2029.

Looking Ahead:

Microsoft’s ultimate goal is to transition users to a native WinUI-based Outlook for better performance and integration. For now, if seamless notification handling and speed are critical to your workflow, sticking with Outlook Classic might be the best choice.

At CTS Group, we recognise the importance of reliable, efficient tools. We’ll continue to monitor these developments and advise our clients accordingly.