Microsoft launches new features to enhance mail & calendar experience

Microsoft is launching new mobile app-inspired features to enhance your mail and calendar experience. The new features will be initially available to Outlook.com and Office 365 users, followed by a roll out for other email services in the coming weeks.

The highlight of this update is Focused Inbox, which helps users to filter emails in two sections - important emails into the Focused section, and less important emails like newsletters into the Other section.

Focused Inbox, which was first available on Outlook for iOS and Android, is available only for Outlook.com and Office 365 users. However, the mobile version is available for Gmail and Google Apps users also.

The company wrote in a blog post, "What lands in your Focused tab is determined by an understanding of the people you interact with often, and the content of the email itself."

Users can also use @mention people in the body of emails, making it easier to refer people and also add them if they’re not already a part of the conversation. Like mobile version, once the @ sign is typed, users will see recent contacts and others.

Coming to the Windows 10 Calendar app that now lets you overlay a variety of Interesting Calendars. Making it easier to scan your schedule and find out the important events, Microsoft is adding coloured categories, interesting calendars, and travel reservation and package delivery support.

While coloured categories let you categorise calendar events with colours, interesting calendar feature enables you to find calendars for sports teams, TV shows, and more, and add them to your calendar to track when events are beginning.

“You will be able to categorise calendar events in a variety of colour categories, enabling you to quickly scan and visually associate similar events, and plan your day better. This has been the top requested calendar feature, so our team is delighted that we could focus our work on what you want,” Lynn Ayres, group program manager for Windows 10 Mail and Calendar apps, wrote in the blog post.

The calendar app also displays travel reservations and package delivery details. “It’s on by default, and you can configure this feature from ‘events in email’ settings in your account on the web,” Ayres wrote.

Moreover, users will also see location suggestions from Bing, just like in Outlook.