Microsoft has released a new update to Outlook for Android that brings a much improved search experience in the email, calendar and contacts app. Version 2.2.147 landed in the Google Play Store on Friday and by now should be out to most reader’s accounts and available to for update.
The biggest change in the app is the improved navigation bar. It is much more simple in this release, providing one-tap access to mail, calendars and to the improved search feature. The navigation bar remains at the bottom of the display has it has for some time now but looks cleaner.
Part of that new navigation bar is the Search tab. You can directly access contacts, itineraries, recent attachments, and messages all from this one page. It is a substantially improved user experience as basically it can pull up anything associated with Outlook for Android within this one search page.
Outlook for Android – May 2018
As you can see from my screenshot above, contacts and files are now directly integrated into Outlook for Android too. This makes it much faster finding a contact or a file as your most common contacts are surfaced first while your most recent files are surfaced too.
This is a substantial update to Outlook and one that power users of Microsoft’s email and calendar client will likely appreciate more than most. If you have it installed, the update is likely ready for you to install. If you want to try Outlook, it is free and available in the Play Store.
