Microsoft stops death of Outlook Classic feature it was going to lock behind New Outlook

Microsoft has hit pause on axing another Outlook Classic feature after users accused it of nudging them toward New Outlook.

Back in April 2026, Microsoft began informing IT admins that it is killing off the expanded view of the people card in Outlook Classic, leaving only the standard view intact. The death of certain features in the email client isn't exactly surprising, as some of our readers may remember that Microsoft is deprecating Meeting Insights for a Copilot-powered alternative too. However, the decision regarding the people card rubbed many the wrong way, as it pushed people towards New Outlook, which people generally believe to be "hot garbage" right now. Now, Microsoft has paused the deprecation of this particular view of the people card, likely due to customer feedback.

As it currently stands, Outlook Classic offers two views of the people card. The first is the standard view, which offers pertinent information about people within your organization:

The other is the expanded view, which surfaces more information and can be useful when you want to find out more about a particular colleague without needing to dig around:

Microsoft decided that Outlook Classic didn't really need the expanded view, so it decided to kill it off in an effort to simplify Outlook Classic and streamline the overall experience.

Except that the problem with the approach was that Microsoft decided to retain this richer experience in the New Outlook and just urged people to use the modernized version of the email client or Outlook on the web.

It's likely that customers weren't pleased with this decision, as Microsoft was axing a feature that worked perfectly well otherwise. Many also viewed it as a shady tactic to get people to switch to the New Outlook, a claim which is understandable to some extent due to the circumstances.

As a result of this apparent backlash, Microsoft recently decided to halt the axing of the expanded view of the people card in Outlook Classic. Its wording states that this retirement is "paused", which suggests that the company may trigger it again at some point, but it's certainly not now. It seems like the firm will need to figure out other ways to get people to ditch Outlook Classic.

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Posted Wednesday 22 July 2026 at 7:46 am AEST (my time).

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