Microsoft announced last year that it would be retiring the Windows Mail & Calendar apps in favor of the new Outlook at the end of 2024. As of January 1, these apps are no longer functional and will refuse to send or receive any more emails. The apps are no longer available to download via the Microsoft Store, and sideloading the app will result in an error when attempting to setup your account.
"Support for Windows Mail, Calendar, and People ended on December 31, 2024. You can no longer send and receive emails or events using Windows Mail and Calendar" reads a Microsoft support document. The company has also announced that it will be automatically installing the new Outlook app on Windows 10 PCs with the upcoming February security updates, if the user doesn't already have it installed.
The new Outlook has been shipping as the default email and calendar experience on Windows 11 for many months, so for a lot of people nothing will have changed here. However, for the many users who opted to keep using the older Mail & Calendar apps, today's news will be frustrating as Microsoft is deliberately making it so these apps are no longer functional.
I attempted to sideload the most up to date version of the Mail & Calendar app on my Windows 11 PC, and found that the application would error out when signing-in. Other users that already had the app setup prior to today have found that the app now shows a popup that tells the user to switch to the new Outlook, with no way to bypass it.
Microsoft wants all Mail & Calendar users to switch over to the new Outlook app, which I've previously said is not ready for prime time as a default, built-in email client for an operating system like Windows. It's very slow and missing vital features such as consistent offline support and reliable push notifications.
