Volume 30 Issue 13

Issue Date: April 10, 2025 « Previous Issue | Next Issue »

The following articles were included in our Exchange Messaging Outlook (EMO) newsletter published on April 10, 2025.

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Office App Buttons in Outlook

Two users had questions about the Office app buttons (Word, Excel, etc) in Outlook’s left rail. One user wanted to remove “those blasted things” while the other user complained his buttons disappeared and he wanted them back.

If you want to remove any of the buttons in the left rail in classic Outlook, new Outlook, or Outlook on the web, right click on the button and choose Unpin.

If you want to rearrange the buttons, drag them up or down the rail. Note that the keyboard shortcut to open the modules is Ctrl+ [number for their position] so moving buttons will change the shortcut used to switch to the module.

To add buttons to the rail, click on last button (squares in a square icon) then right click on the app you want on the rail, choosing Pin. Pinning Office apps in classic Outlook will open the desktop app, while the web version will open in new Outlook or Outlook on the web.

When you have more than one account in new Outlook, changes to the rail are specific to the account whose folders you are in at the time you made the change. If the account is a Microsoft account (consumer or business), the changes sync to Outlook on the web for that account. Classic Outlook’s left rail is global and applies to all accounts in the profile. If you have a Microsoft account, the changes do not sync to Outlook on the web.

Removing all Events from Calendar

This question comes up often from Outlook on the web users and now from new Outlook users:

“I imported an .ics file into my default calendar in the new version of Outlook. There seems to be no option to remove this calendar or the events from it. Any help would be appreciated.”

Unfortunately, in the new version of Outlook, there isn't an option to remove all events from the default calendar in one operation. You can only delete events one at a time.

If you frequently import .ics files, create a new blank calendar specifically for these imports, as this allows you to remove the entire calendar if needed without affecting your primary schedule.

If you are using an outlook.com or Microsoft hosted mailbox and have classic Outlook, add the account to Outlook and after the calendar syncs, switch to a list view (View tab > Change View). Click View Settings then Columns. Add the Created field to the view sort by it. Select all events that have the same date then Delete. The changes will sync to the account online within a few minutes.

Outlook.com issues on iOS

Over the last few days, a lot of users are reporting problems signing into outlook.com accounts in a web browser on their iPhone. It’s appears to be only affecting some users and some devices.

When you attempt to sign in, affected users report one of two things happens:
1. The page redirects multiple times and ends with a message to download the Outlook mobile app. If using iOS 15 or 16, the message includes a banner that says you need iOS 17 or newer to install the app.
2. A blank page loads.

When I tested it using an old iPhone 7 (iOS 15) I borrowed from my daughter, I got the redirect to the invitation to install the Outlook app. I tried logging in to login.live.com. This worked and I used the apps menu (the waffle icon) to open Outlook. It worked and I could read my mail.

Logging into outlook.com on my old iPad (iOS 16) worked as expected. My old IPhone 6 (iOS 12) logged into account.microsoft.com just fine but had a white screen when I tried opening outlook.com from the app menu. This could be due to the age of that phone as Microsoft says Outlook on the web requires iOS 15 and newer. Users with iOS 15 had the same problem and their browser is supported.

Microsoft is investigating but I don't have an ETA for when it will be fixed.

Why some bugs are hard to solve…

… and can only be solved by the affected person.

About 10 days ago, spell check in web forms stopped working even though I had Microsoft Editor enabled. Copy and Paste was “dead” in most apps in my computer if I was logged into a Windows 10 computer using remote desktop but worked again as soon as I closed the remote desktop.

I disabled the Editor in Edge settings and I tried changing Remote desktop settings I found in google and nothing helped.

It was frustrating. I asked friends if they knew the cause, but they didn't have any suggestions besides what I already tried.

Around the same time, the extensions I have in Google Chrome were added to Edge. I only knew this because one extension needed permission (I said no). I also had a couple of extensions that were duplicated. I sign into my browser on multiple computers and blamed the duplicates on a sync glitch and deleted the duplicate extensions.

I have multiple profiles in Edge that I use for testing and they don't have extensions installed. I discovered today that spell check worked in them. I bit the bullet and reset my Edge settings. Resetting Edge deleted all my cookies and disabled the extensions. Spell check worked again. I enabled a few extensions: LastPass, Honey, and Microsoft Editor. Spell check stopped working.

At that point the light bulb came on. Why is there an Editor extension when it’s built into Edge? Ahh, it came over from Chrome and was automatically enabled. I deleted it and spell check worked again. Copy and paste worked when a remote desktop was open too.

While it’s understandable that the Editor extension would interfere in the browser where it was built in, I was shocked that it was the cause of the copy and paste problems too.