Microsoft strengthens Outlook security, retires legacy features

Microsoft today announced changes to Outlook consumer experience to deliver a modern and secure email experience for its users.

First, from September 16^th, Outlook.com, Hotmail.com, Live.com email users will need to move to Modern Authentication methods in their email application. After this date, Microsoft will no longer allow users to have just Basic Auth where they can just provide username and password to sign into their account. With Modern Authentication, when anyone uses an email client which does not support modern authentication, they will no longer be able to access their Outlook.com, Hotmail or Live.com email.

Second, the classic Windows Mail and Calendar apps will move out of support in 2024. Users are advised to migrate to the new Outlook for Windows which is available for free and comes with several features which were lacking in the classic Windows Mail and Calendar apps.

Third, Microsoft was offering a lightweight version of the Outlook web app that was supported by older browsers. Microsoft has now decided to retire the light version of the Outlook web app. After 2024 customers will need to run the latest versions of a supported browser to run Outlook.com.

Browser Minimum requirements to run Outlook.com:

• Microsoft Edge (version 79 or later)
• Chrome (version 79 or later)
• Firefox (78 or later)
• Safari (version 16 or later)
• Opera (76 or later)

Operating System Minimum Requirements:

• Windows OS: Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows Server 2022, Windows Server 2019, or Windows Server 2016
• macOS: macOS Sonoma, macOS Ventura, and macOS Monterey
• Linux: Outlook.com works in both Firefox and Chrome on Linux

In addition to the above three changes, Microsoft is removing the ability for people to access their Gmail accounts in Outlook.com via the left rail as of June 30, 2024. For Outlook mobile, Play My Emails and Voice Search will be deprecated at the end of June, 2024.