Microsoft celebrates Outlook.com's first birthday since replacing Hotmail

Microsoft is celebrating the birthday of Outlook.com, which turned one today. The new email service replaced Hotmail last year, offering a revamped user experience, as well as new features and integration with other Microsoft products. Being well-received, Microsoft has updated the service numerous times since launch, implementing fixes and improvements highlighted in consumer feedback.

In a blog post today, Microsoft's Dick Craddock noted, "the average number of monthly feedback submissions for Outlook.com is about 50 times what we received with Hotmail." This is evident by seeing what's been added. Here's a cool infographic showing some of the top features that have been implemented through request.

Outlook Birthday

The blog post continues to cover reliability, speed and the other 600 improvements added. It's worth checking out, and be sure to continue leaving feedback for further improvements to be applied.

Source: Outlook Blog (opens in new tab), via: PC Mag

Rich Edmonds
Senior Editor, PC Build

Rich Edmonds was formerly a Senior Editor of PC hardware at Windows Central, covering everything related to PC components and NAS. He's been involved in technology for more than a decade and knows a thing or two about the magic inside a PC chassis. You can follow him on Twitter at @RichEdmonds.

99 Comments
  • Coming soon outlook drive
  • Xdrive
  • Might get in trouble with BMW....XDrive is a term they use for thier all wheel drive vehicles.
  • not to mention, if anyone's noticed Microsoft's naming pattern, they tend to like a "box" in there ("XBOX Music, XBOX Video") so itd more likely be XBOX Drive than XDrive. However, Microsoft Drive and Outlook Drive are also possible names.
  • True DAT. Xbox Drive
  • xcloud
     
  • Not gonna happen as Xbox is the entertainment brand by Microsoft. It's really easy. There are 7 big consumer brands in Microsoft: Windows: The OS brand for PC's, servers and mobile devices. Office: The brand for their productivity tools. Xbox: The entertainment brand, with games, music, video's and such. Bing: The search engine and brand for anything you look for from webpages to maps to images. Outlook: The email brand and while it's also a part of Office, it always had a stand-alone version with Express and now with Outlook.com. Skype: The IM, audio- and videochat service and brand. And as last, of course, Skydrive: The cloud brand. I hope you can see that they probably won't put it under one of their other brands, because it doesn't really fit under anything. They'll just find a new name, keep the same logo and other designs so consumers won't get confussed and they're done.   Calling it Xbox would be the last thing they would do, because it Skydrive isn't an entertainment service in the least.
  • You missed several bigger ones then you mentioned. To assist in your argument, debunking mine. Buy that falls under office. Skype isn't their only audio/voice they also have Lync, and now yammer. As for cloud, they have also have azure. So its anyone's guess what "Skydrive" falls under. It could be "mydrive". Cause as of 8.1 its natively supported. Office drive. Whatever. Most here are more then aware of what MS offers for services.
  • Lync, Azure and Yammer are all bussiness oriented services. I was talking about consumer services. 
    Office drive could be an option with the 365 route they stepped in, seeying Google has blended drive and docs too.
    Still, at the moment, Skydrive really looks like "the place where you save everything", just like Dropbox and giving it the Office label wouldn't cover it properly.
    Most people know, but the people I commented to clearly didn't, because they thought MS is just Xboxing everything randomly.
  • I agree. I am interested in what they will do. I have been using their cloud storage since it was called mesh :)
  • perhaps they'll forgo *Drive altogether an go for something different. like "Microsoft Sync", "CloudSync" or "Office Sync".
  • They had similar. It was originally called "live mesh" and the service wad called "live mesh - PC sync".
  • I think they will keep the "drive" as mentioned, as of windows 8.1, "SkyDrive" is natively supported. And is seamlessly integrated in the file system
  • possibly, but you never know. Something like "Windows Sync" would be really viable, since Microsoft appears, from my point of view, to tout Skydrive more as a solution to /sync/ files across devices than as a place to store files in the cloud (even though that's just marketing lingo, since its all the same thing).
  • That's what I was thinking :P
  • Lol! 
     
    Though, if they follow privious renamings, it's going to be something like "Windows Cloud Sync & Storage" or something else tacky.
  • XCloud?
  • Skydrive already available
  • Not after today's events :) Name is to be changed required by law
     
  • Has anyone taken "Cloud Drive" yet? That way they can keep the clouds in their branding.
  • Xbox SkyDrive?
  • How about FileDrive or Windows Locker...or Live Locker
  • "Fastest growing email service of all time"... Kind of deceptive since it inherited millions of hotmail users over night.
  • So what? Still an honest data.
  • It's called an 'observation'.
  • Google does this with Google Plus, lol And Gmail...
    And every other Google service...
  • Sort of same issue with me. But in the end I don't mind "live" brand and its shorter to type.
  • Haha, exactly. When Google+ launched everyone with Gmail account automatically had a Google+ profile, and Google reported these figures rather than the active users which was very low.
  • No more dishonest than googles way overly inflated number of g+ users.
     
     
  • Now let me transfer my old .live 25GB Skydrive (or whatever it's going to be called) to my .outlook email address.  They're both the same name, but for whatever reason, we can't combine them.  I don't know why it bothers me so much haha
  • You can sign in with your outlook account...
  • I jumped the gun and created my .outlook name as the same as my .live name so I'm unable to port my .live to the .outlook.  I've asked MS to terminate my .live email and port the 25GB space to my .outlook username so that they know I'm not using both, but they wouldn't.
  • Add your @outlook account as an alias to your @live account. Recently Microsoft allowed users to sign in with aliases, so you can sign in with your @outlook alias too if it's added.
  • I did the Xbox switcharoo that was on here a while ago, all of my purchases and settings are now under my @Outlook account.  The only thing I haven't switched from my @Live account is the 25GB Skydrive storage, even though I don't need it now, I will soon enough, especially once I get the 1020.
  • I signed up for the 25 GB of storage when my name was @hotmail.com. It was easy, I merely changed my primary account name to @outlook.com and the 25 GB of SkyDrive storage stayed there. Nothing changed at all except my primary alias.
  • I wish I would have done that, but like I said, I jumped the gun and created the name I wanted as an @Outlook.com one.  So now I hae my @Outlook.com name which I use for everything with 7GB of storage and my exact same name, but @Live.com with the 25GB which is sitting there unused.
  • Gotcha, is all your purchases on the Outlook account too?
  • Yeahp, I think I screwed myself haha
  • Ahhhhh, sorry about that. I misunderstood.
  • I still use my hotmail.com email as my primary on WP, one thing ive noticed is that the older accounts (mines 12 ish years old) get all new new features first :-)
  • Here would be an improvement, fix the original hotmail client to work on my phone so I don't have to reset my device to set outlook as the main account. Because I refuse to reset my phone I now have two hotmail accounts on here. Or just allow a way to switch the main email account with out resetting devices. Now that would be an improvement!
  • I would like to do this also-drop hotmail.com and change to outlook.com. Why is it so difficult? NOT resetting my L900..
  • Hopefully they don't get sue...Outlook seem like a very common word.
  • Microsoft has been using it for decades...
  • That's true but Microsoft has also been using Skydrive for six years...
  • I thought they got rid of using aliases
  • They're getting rid of linking accounts.
  • Never thought I would use Microsoft's email service, but after the latest improvements to outlook, I started to spend less time on Gmail.
  • I have also stopped using Gmail. Infact, i've got rid of all google services except for youtube (sigh). I have one question to MS. Please provide the same experience in the Windows 8 mail app. After using outlook.com, the mail app seems to be too dumb.
    Off topic, is there any good alternative for 'blogger'?
  • clearly you've never heard of "tumblr".
  • Tumblr isn't really a good alternative for real blogs. I think you're better off with an own domain with hosting and a CMS like Wordpress. Here (in the Netherlands) that would total to under ten euro's a year. You're also free to do whatever you want! 8D
  • Tumblr is a perfectly good blogging service. Even people, such as Microsoft (for Windows Phone) and "The Verge" use it. It has a number of themes to choose from or you can make your own (similar to Wordpress), and theres even a social aspect where you can follow other blogs, so the content from the blogs you follow is streamlined on your dashboard. And you are still free to do as you want, as well.
     
    ...i dont know why you think its not for "real" blogs.
  • Hbd!!! :D :) im lovin it :)
  • Holy banana donkers?
  • Hard Boiled Doghnuts! Yeah!!!
  • Happy birthday...
  • Are you sure?
  • Since the leveraged an existing enterprise for the consumer space with Outlook.com, I think they should use SharePoint.com for SkyDrive. SharePoint is the backend for SkyDrive Pro and in many companies.
  • now if contact photos would sync across devices, that would be cool. not just the social networking ones.
  • They sync across. I use four different devices and at least a dozen Microsoft based apps. They all show contact information with pictures
  • perhaps they are using google contacts or something. Ive noticed Google contacts for which i added additional info in a linked outlook contact didnt sync the photo stored in google contacts. Safe to say i stopped using google contacts.
  • Live contacts? Microsoft even admits its not possible. http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windowslive/forum/mail-people/how-do-...
  • Happy birthday outlook
  • A well deserved anniversary I would say
  • Its also the birthday of when I was last able to get to my email that was in 'hotmail'. You see, I have an Office 365 account that is for the email address of my live account and now I can't get to my email that was in Hotmail. I can see I have 6 emails there. Luckily that was only a test account. This is because outlook.com services both Office 365 and Hotmail/public offering. Its really amazing to me that this is still a problem. I am also not alone twin this, if you have a Microsoft account with your own name and then have that domain's email be handled by Office 365, you are doomed. I've seen a lot of people that used their company email address for their Live account, and then have the company move to Office 365.
  • I hope that a restriction has been imposed that prevents "sky" from releasing a product called skydrive for a set period of time as that would certainly create confusion
  • Love outlook.com. I like it combines my contacts, mail, storage and calendar in one place. With the metro interface. I have managed many android to WP conversions thanks to the look and feel of outlook.com. Still waiting for that commission check from MS :D
  • I love outlook.com. Unlike google, I never really get spammed
  • and for those emails you dropped on the floor, you can take a broom and "sweep" them into other folders! :D
  • Exactly. I really only use my outlook account for anything Microsoft and family. I use my Gmail for things that I think will give me spam
  • i dont even do that anymore. i use the sweep feature to sweep any stray spam or mass sent emails in my inbox to other folders, and for things i think may give me spam, i have an outlook.com alias address set up to direct emails sent to it to a seperate folder.. i also use aliases for task specific accounts.
  • So this might not mean anything to most people, but I'm loving how awesome my email address is thanks to the new Outlook service. I have my name and no numbers and it looks so professional. No alias's or work-arounds. Just my personal name. Suck it Google!
    And sorry to others who weren't as fortunate, lol.
  • Yeah same here! I feel better giving it out to companies. Yeah when outlook first came out, I quickly signed up so I could the perfect address
  • I knew I was on to something genius!
  • Similar experience here, except that I did that with my @live.com address. At Gmail you got to put in random crap after the end so you know others didn't take it before you!
  • Hey, you're a developer right? I think saw you in the developers forum section. I wanted to ask one of you guys a question.
  • Yep, and I'm still waiting for my Developer status thingy that I requested from a thread. So, what's the question?
  • While I do consider myself very "tech literate", I've never been able to wrap my head around how developing/programming is achieved. Sure, I could buy a book and waste time being confused. My goal though is to start with a strong fundamental understanding of how to develop/program. I already have music as my focus, so more schooling is not an option. But still, I really want to learn something new and get a new hobby. I want to write some apps for WP8.
    So -- my question, lol:
    Where is the best place to start?
  • Well, I believe there are several ways to start! I started with books myself, learning a beginner's programmer language (Visual Basic). There are many great tutorials on the web, I believe. I also started with the help of a friend, which he knew much more about the language than me. He taught me about the basic functions/methods and syntax. Now, as I transitioned over to C# and programmed what I really love to program (WP apps), I use StackOverflow for help whenever I need it! (just don't ask them questions that can be searched easily on the web, or you will get negative rep. on your questions) So, where to start? It's a hard question to answer exactly for everyone. But since you stated you want to get on with it and start right away, try the tutorials I will link as another reply first. Read them slowly, and make sure you understand what the author is talking about. Then, you probably want to get knowing a few terms to make online resources (help) a whole lot easier for you!
  • IDE= Integrated Development Environment (eg. Visual Studio, Eclipse, etc)
    Compile= To translate your code to code your computer can understand
  • You have no idea how much I appreciate the help. I'm gonna be busy tonight! And likely frustrated, lol. Thanks mate! Cheers.
  • Congratulations! I love it, so beautiful. Can't stand Gmail, and I have a terrible username that Google doesn't allow me to change.
  • Congratulations Microsoft and thanks for the awesomeness that is Outlook.com!
  • completely agree...just love Outlook.com !!!
  • Has it really been one year already...
  • I thought outlook came out a few months ago
  • I believe the closing of hotmail was early this year, but outlook.com has technically been around for a bit.
  • I still use my hotmail.. Should i be changing or will it change automatically?
  • Outlook.com is great, but please add the option to reduce the image (Attachment) size, not just resizing the picture but reducing the file size by reducing the resolution. 
  • i like outlook UI. it's fast and easy to use.
  • SkyBox
  • Oo, I like Skybox.
  • Nice name
  • Seeing how "Sky" is the problem to begin with im not sure that will work.
  • Does it have filters and tags like Gmail? Can I import these tags from it? 
  • Microsoft™ My Drive
  • I like it. Or perhaps "MiDrive" to incorporate the first 2 letters of Microsoft...
  • Wow a year has passed? Feels like yesterday hotmail was updated. Anyways happy birthday outlook :)
  • I tried using my MSN.com email address as my primary address so that I could access my emails files and folders from any computer, smartphone..etc. Worked fine for years, but early this year, I founds that all of my save email files (but not folders) had vanished. This was around the time that I upgraded my Office software from 2010 (which used Outlook connector) to 2013 (subscription). All efforts to get Microsoft to find a way to retrieve these were futile. For this reason, I stopped using that address as a primary address, and went back to using my Verizon.net email address inside of Outlook instead. Unfortunately, this is a pop3 (no IMAP available) so I can only retrieve my email from one computer (or by remoting into it from another computer), but at least my email is safe, given the factor that I back up my PST files to multiple places, both in my house and in the cloud. Too bad...I wanted to be able to use Outlook.com, but not at the risk of losing my stored email again.