Mail and Calendar Fluent Design update now rolling out to everyone

By Dan Thorp-Lancaster
last updated

Microsoft is adding some more Fluent Design flourishes to the Mail and Calendar app for everyone.

We recently saw an update to the Mail and Calendar apps for Windows 10 go into testing with Insiders, bringing along fresh Fluent Design flourishes. That update now appears to be making its way to everyone on the release version of Windows 10.

The refreshed design adds a cleaner look to both Mail and Calendar with some subtle changes. The most prominent effects on display are the Acrylic and Reveal effects found in the hamburger menu on the left. As you hover over each option, you'll now see a touch of light follow your mouse cursor, a hallmark of Microsoft's Fluent Design System. The light effect even casts slightly onto surrounding options, giving you a hint to the borders around each option.

This update also brings a new "borderless" UI, which means the content extends to the very top of the app window. It's a pretty modern look that makes surrounding apps without a borderless window look dated by comparison.

A closer look at Microsoft's updated Mail and Calendar apps with Fluent Design

According to the release notes (opens in new tab) for the latest version, you'll have a new photo to use as an app background as well. Here's a look at what's new:

  • Mail and Calendar have a refreshing new visual design and background photo.
  • Choose from hundreds of new colors to brighten up your calendars.

Expect to see Fluent Design make its way further into more Microsoft apps over the coming months as it continues to expand. For now, the update for Mail and Calendar appears to be in the midst of rolling out to Windows 10 users now as version 17.8700.40485.0.

Thanks to Thallanor for the tip!

See at Microsoft (opens in new tab)

Dan Thorp-Lancaster
Dan Thorp-Lancaster

Dan Thorp-Lancaster is the former Editor-in-Chief of Windows Central. He began working with Windows Central, Android Central, and iMore as a news writer in 2014 and is obsessed with tech of all sorts. You can follow Dan on Twitter @DthorpL and Instagram @heyitsdtl. 

39 Comments
  • looks so good and the little circle animation is bonus
  • really.... there are far more important things that are wrong or broken in windows 10 than needing to this app. OMG 
  • @flop_duhhhhh_key  so do you really think the people working on Design and aesthetics are the Same team that fixes coding issues and bugs? ... seriously.... you Do know MS has more than 1 guy working on Windows 10..... 
  • Different teams for different jobs, you are assuming that the people that are working on UI would be better tasked working on bugs in the OS for example. This is absolutely not how software development works. If it was we would all still be using MS-DOS..
  • Looks great, but I always find myself drifting between the app version and the Outlook.com website. The web version has much better features. But the app has useful notifications, looks nicer and integrates into the system. I wish they add more features to the app to get it closer to the web version of Outlook.com.
  • I feel exactly the same!!
  • Still can't manage junk or phishing through the app. Lame.
  • I always thought they should've used a similar "halo effect" with w10m navigation bar. Like, the "buttons" would be wide instead of specific targets. Also could've implemented some swipe gestures (back/forward) while single tap being back (or maybe up to user which)
  • I wish they got rid of the 1px border to make it truly borderless
  • Same here. Would love to see the 1px border not spanning across monitors when setting app full screen.
  • Too much hype on this, is is just a bit of polish if you ask me.
  • Long overdue though.  Guess it will be like this for 3 yrs now until they think up another slight change...joking aside, I like that they are trying to lead the way in certain apps and UI changes by example.  Other apps like VLC and myTube though had certain Fluent Design changes long ago.
  • They should make outlook appear more like the mail app.  The mail app has always looked better to me even though outlook is the more premium service. But, I know its easier said than done.  
  • Does anyone actually have the new calendar colors?
  • I have it on the 650 (fast ring), but not on the 950 (production), with the same version of the app and same account o_O
  • Dark theme is a mess with Fluent Design. Hope they will make some adjustments.
  • That's great, I hope the Groove team will add the same borderless UI to their app soon as well!
  • Love it.   It's very modern looking and a nice refresh.  I agree with the outlook,  look like mail.  I don't use outlook anymore because mail app is just nicer and cleaner.
  • Ughhh is there a way to turn off these highlights and fake frames while hovering mouse? It's just pure kitsch :/
  • First: it looks beautiful. Second: I can already hear the voice of my parents complaining that they don't know where to drag the window around anymore with the top bar hidden away. C'mon Microsoft. This is bad ux AGAIN. Why isn't there a transparent gradient in black or white fading in and out when you get near the topbar with the cursor or something like that? The borderless design is a nice idea but again not thought through completely. Typically Microsoft.
  • The hidden scroll-bar is much much worse imho. Especially when scroll on mouse is also broken for the page. Happens a lot in Settings app. And you can't even see if there is more content placed off-screen to scroll down, unless you find where to hover your pointer to actually bring the scrollbar to life. Awful. Plain awful.
  • the mail app is not that great, it is fine maybe with one email account, i expect most people who use it will use it juust for the outlook/hotmail account, buti do not have one of them and tried using it for my own email accounts and going from one account to another is a pain in the neck.  I thought i would try it as some people have said how good it was. thunderbird is far better.  As for the calender, I would not use that anyway, apart from just checking the date.  
  • Lol. Are you serious! The calendar is beautiful.  The mail app is good enough now I’ve almost weened off of full outlook. 
  • Serious that I don't use it, what would I use it for? the main calender app is only really of use if you get into the MS ecosystem and have an MS account, which is why I Uninstalled that. t he only part i use is on the taskbar as i said just to check the dates. i have a calender hanging on the wall behind me which i use to put appointments on.  
  • Funny I can manage my Yahoo, gMail and a POP3-based account along my Outlook.com and enterprise account. Makes me wonder what your point is based on.
  • i did not say it was not possible, I said it it was a pain. On thunderbird, I can see all my accounts and the folders, with Windows mail, i have to click on the account and then click on folders.  windows mail is just too simplifeid to be honest.  
  • That's a valid point. Nevertheless here I stand using it with 6 different accounts and left Thunderbird just to use the Mail app.
  • the mail app is not that great, it is fine maybe with one email account, i expect most people who use it will use it juust for the outlook/hotmail account, buti do not have one of them and tried using it for my own email accounts and going from one account to another is a pain in the neck.  I thought i would try it as some people have said how good it was. thunderbird is far better.  As for the calender, I would not use that anyway, apart from just checking the date.
  • Could be right. As most people probably only use a single account for anything anyways. But I use it for 2 professional accounts and 4 personal as well.
  • I'm having versie 17.8700.40486.0 on Outlook Agenda and Outlook Mail
  • I hope it doesn't stop there, there are alot of visual improvements needed for this app.
  • I love FD. I just hope they go So much further with it. So much potential. I would love to get excited, but we are talkin about MS. They will likely do something stupid and botch this completely instead of taking it where it should go.  so sad that I have zero faith in MS. .... I really Want to. I jus can't... 
  • I hope they bring that to the start  menu and action center quickly!  Those visuals are very nice looking.  dig em.  
  • Fluent Design looks pretty nice, but it is completely wrong design decision from the logical view. Why the hell I would like to have transparent my main window? I need to see content of my software and not be distracted by desktop wallpaper or some other window underneath. I need to concentrate on work and not thinking: hmmm this transparency under my text very cool, yeah. Blurry transparent active window is same stupid thing like borderless and titeless windows. If somebody is supporter of borderless windows, then he doesn't work with multiple windows at once but always only with one maximized and can return to Metro Apps in 8.1, which are running fullscreen. Border and Title are the main thing, which defines that this is window and can be moved from here, and resized here. Maybe they apply some little transparent only on Title when the window is not maximized. Windows Longorn has that feature, when window was maximized, Titlebar changed from trasnparent to solid color. When resized back, it fades to transparent again. They were talking about it on some event, exactly with reason that when you maximized the window, you want to work. And don't want to be distracted by anything else under the window.
  • You do realize that making it transparent is just an option given to the hands of the developers, who are given plenty of options already to mess up their design the way they want. And actually current builds of neither Mail nor Calendar apps show content behind active window. Also, this is just the perfect way of trying to make certain elements of the app blend in with your customization, that a developer cannot even try to think of when implementing the control under one's hands.
  • I love the new design. I kinda wish there was a feature to protect the mail app with a password.
  • Super important question. Does anyone know how to get the file that is the background picture? I've been hunting everywhere in the app without any success. The closest I've come with an image search is using Google's image recognition of a partial of the image which gives 'microsoft mail fluent design mountain' as its result along with this page's screen capture. Any ideas? (I've scoured the directory at this Microsoft help question but the image in question is not in that particular location... that I can see, at least :(
  • Check out this post: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/apps_windows_10-outloo... It solved my problem.
  • Having read the comments all I can think of is some rude, sexual term. Really? Fluent Design is going to be the thing that saves Windows 10 from obscurity? C'mon. Both Apple and Microsoft have been down this road before. It's nothing special. Move on. If this is what you're worried about you've lost sight of the big picture and I've got some prime swamp land with your name on it in. A fantastic business opportunity!