Email app
Outlook
Microsoft’s email and calendar app, for personal and work accounts.
Outlook is two things that share a name. Outlook.com is Microsoft’s free personal email service, which replaced Hotmail in 2013. The Outlook app is the email and calendar program that has shipped with Microsoft Office since 1997, and it can open Outlook.com, work accounts and Gmail in one place.
The app now comes in several versions: new Outlook for Windows, which replaced the Windows Mail and Calendar app at the end of 2024, classic Outlook, Outlook for Mac, Outlook on the web and the mobile apps. Features such as recall and scheduled sending work differently in each, so our guides say which version every step applies to. On a work account, an administrator can also control rules, retention and some settings.
01Is Outlook free?
Outlook.com is free with a Microsoft account and includes 15 GB of email storage. A Microsoft 365 Personal or Family subscription raises that to 100 GB, removes the ads in Outlook.com and adds the desktop Office apps. Work and school mailboxes are paid for by the organisation through Microsoft 365.
02How to start using Outlook
- 1
Create a free address at outlook.com with Create free account, or sign in with a Microsoft account you already have.
- 2
Read mail at outlook.com, or install Outlook on your phone. New Outlook comes with Windows 11, and Outlook for Mac is free in the Mac App Store.
- 3
To read Gmail or a work account in the same app, add it in Settings, Accounts.
- 4
Schedule a message for later with how to schedule an email in Outlook.
03Is Outlook safe?
Two-step verification
Turn on two-step verification at account.microsoft.com, under Security, so a stolen password alone cannot open your mailbox.
Phishing
Outlook moves much of the junk to the Junk Email folder and flags some suspicious senders. Report phishing from the message, and remember that Microsoft does not ask for your password by email.
Sent the wrong thing?
Recall only works between work or school accounts in Microsoft 365. See how to recall a sent email in Outlook for what it can and cannot undo.
