{"id":5524,"date":"2018-12-07T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-12-07T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/whats-on-the-horizon-for-outlook-com\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T17:17:42","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T22:17:42","slug":"whats-on-the-horizon-for-outlook-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/whats-on-the-horizon-for-outlook-com","title":{"rendered":"What&#8217;s on the Horizon for Outlook.com"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"update\">\n<p><strong>UPDATE: <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The updates to Outlook.com are now rolled out to all accounts. Marketers can now take full advantage of <a rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/understanding-media-queries-in-html-email\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">media query<\/a> support and support for roles and ARIA attributes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>If you\u2019ve been keeping an eye on Microsoft Outlook over the last few years, you\u2019ll have noticed that the Outlook team has been making some great improvements.<\/p>\n<p>Along with improvements like <a rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/litmus.com\/blog\/consistent-media-query-support-returning-to-outlook-apps\">adding media query support<\/a> to mobile Outlook apps, the team has tackled issues like adding SVG support and <a rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/litmus.com\/blog\/microsoft-outlook-2019-heres-whats-new\">fixing the Times New Roman font fallback issue<\/a>. And, while not Outlook-specific, Microsoft has even <a rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/litmus.com\/blog\/animated-gif-support-comes-to-windows-10-mail\">added animated GIF support<\/a> for Windows 10 Mail.<\/p>\n<p>With all of the work going into Outlook, email marketers are left with one question: What\u2019s next? A few intrepid email geeks recently got a sneak peek as the Outlook team started testing new updates in Outlook.com. The features below are still being tested by the Outlook team and aren\u2019t available to all users, but should be rolling out to everyone in the next few months.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s what you can look forward to from Microsoft.<\/p>\n<h2>Media Query Support<\/h2>\n<p>R\u00e9mi Parmentier noticed that Outlook.com will be supporting CSS media queries.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">It looks like <a rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ynP86JodiI\">https:\/\/t.co\/ynP86JodiI<\/a> is starting to support media queries. Not 100% consistent, so it must be some kind of A\/B testing. But hey, hurray! <a rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ynP86JodiI\">https:\/\/t.co\/ynP86JodiI<\/a> was the last major western webmail to not support media queries. <a rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/emailgeeks?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#emailgeeks<\/a> <a rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/HHEkXg03Zh\">pic.twitter.com\/HHEkXg03Zh<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 HTeuMeuLeu (@HTeuMeuLeu) <a rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/HTeuMeuLeu\/status\/1067007654801883136?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 26, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Media queries allow designers and developers to target specific attributes of an email client or web browser and adjust the styles of their email as needed. It\u2019s a powerful tool, and the <a rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/litmus.com\/blog\/understanding-media-queries-in-html-email\">foundation of responsive email<\/a>. With Outlook.com\u2019s upcoming support of media queries, email marketers now have another tool to optimize their campaigns for subscribers\u2014regardless of what device they\u2019re using to check their Outlook.com inbox.<\/p>\n<h2>Better Accessibility<\/h2>\n<p>We\u2019ve written before about how <a rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/litmus.com\/blog\/ultimate-guide-accessible-emails\">accessibility should be a key focus<\/a> for email marketers. Two tools available for email marketers to create more accessible emails are <a rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/developer.mozilla.org\/en-US\/docs\/Learn\/Accessibility\/WAI-ARIA_basics\">roles and ARIA attributes<\/a>, both of which provide additional context for content in emails to users that need it. Previously, Outlook.com was stripping both from HTML but, as Mark Robbins noted on Twitter, the pending update remedies that situation.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Good new <a rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/emailgeeks?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#emailgeeks<\/a> and <a rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/a11y?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#a11y<\/a> fans. <a rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Outlook?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@Outlook<\/a> webmail is no longer removing role and aria attributes. There are still a number of other issues that need fixing but this is a big step forward.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Mark Robbins (@M_J_Robbins) <a rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/M_J_Robbins\/status\/1067403961735569408?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 27, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Now, marketers can (and should) include ARIA attributes and roles to better describe the content in their emails for disabled users and those using assistive technology like screen readers. In fact, one of the best ways to make your emails more accessible is by including the role attribute set to presentation on every table tag in your campaign. Doing so takes the tables out of the accessibility tree so that screen readers skip right to the content within those tables, instead of reading out every table row, column, and cell individually.<\/p>\n<h2>Outlook\u2019s Bright Future<\/h2>\n<p>As with any email client, there are always improvements to be made. But the Outlook team has made it clear that they\u2019re committed to evolving the platform not only for users, but for email marketers as well.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>We&#8217;re always looking for ways to improve Outlook for both our users and the email development community. This recent set of changes is directly informed by what we heard from the community, and we&#8217;ll keep listening.<\/p>\n<p>-Rebecca Lawler, Outlook Consumer Program Manager<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Along with the <a rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/litmus.com\/microsoft-partnership\">partnership between Microsoft and Litmus<\/a>, the Outlook team has been interacting with email marketers online and off. Outlook Consumer Program Manager Rebecca Lawler even attended the San Francisco leg of Litmus Live earlier this month.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re looking forward to continuing our partnership with Microsoft and can\u2019t wait to see what\u2019s coming for Outlook in 2019 and beyond.<\/p>\n<h2>Start Testing in Outlook.com<\/h2>\n<p>See how your emails render in Outlook.com and keep an eye on Microsoft\u2019s latest updates when they roll out in the next few months. Never send another broken email.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn medium orange\" style=\"color: #fff; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold;\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/litmus.com\/pricing\">BOOK A DEMO TODAY \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you\u2019ve been keeping an eye on Microsoft Outlook over the last few years, you\u2019ll have noticed that the Outlook team has been making some great improvements. With all of the work going into Outlook, email marketers are left with one question: What\u2019s next? Here\u2019s what you can look forward to from Microsoft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4754,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"blog_category":[741,53],"class_list":["post-5524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","blog_category-partners","blog_category-tips-resources"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.5 (Yoast SEO v27.7) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>What&#039;s on the Horizon for Outlook.com - Litmus<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Are you an email marketer wondering what&#039;s next with Microsoft Outlook? Here\u2019s what you can look forward to from Microsoft.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/whats-on-the-horizon-for-outlook-com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What&#039;s on the Horizon for Outlook.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Are you an email marketer wondering what&#039;s next with Microsoft Outlook? Here\u2019s what you can look forward to from Microsoft.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/whats-on-the-horizon-for-outlook-com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Litmus\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/litmusapp\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-12-07T00:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-12-23T22:17:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/outlook-apps-to-support-media-queries.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1380\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"724\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@litmusapp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@litmusapp\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"What's on the Horizon for Outlook.com - Litmus","description":"Are you an email marketer wondering what's next with Microsoft Outlook? Here\u2019s what you can look forward to from Microsoft.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/whats-on-the-horizon-for-outlook-com","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"What's on the Horizon for Outlook.com","og_description":"Are you an email marketer wondering what's next with Microsoft Outlook? Here\u2019s what you can look forward to from Microsoft.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/whats-on-the-horizon-for-outlook-com","og_site_name":"Litmus","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/litmusapp","article_published_time":"2018-12-07T00:00:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-12-23T22:17:42+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1380,"height":724,"url":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/outlook-apps-to-support-media-queries.png","type":"image\/png"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@litmusapp","twitter_site":"@litmusapp","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/whats-on-the-horizon-for-outlook-com#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/whats-on-the-horizon-for-outlook-com"},"author":{"name":"","@id":""},"headline":"What&#8217;s on the Horizon for Outlook.com","datePublished":"2018-12-07T00:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2025-12-23T22:17:42+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/whats-on-the-horizon-for-outlook-com"},"wordCount":720,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/whats-on-the-horizon-for-outlook-com#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/outlook-apps-to-support-media-queries.png","inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/whats-on-the-horizon-for-outlook-com#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/whats-on-the-horizon-for-outlook-com","url":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/whats-on-the-horizon-for-outlook-com","name":"What's on the Horizon for Outlook.com - Litmus","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/whats-on-the-horizon-for-outlook-com#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/whats-on-the-horizon-for-outlook-com#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/outlook-apps-to-support-media-queries.png","datePublished":"2018-12-07T00:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2025-12-23T22:17:42+00:00","description":"Are you an email marketer wondering what's next with Microsoft Outlook? Here\u2019s what you can look forward to from Microsoft.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/whats-on-the-horizon-for-outlook-com#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/whats-on-the-horizon-for-outlook-com"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/whats-on-the-horizon-for-outlook-com#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/outlook-apps-to-support-media-queries.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/outlook-apps-to-support-media-queries.png","width":1380,"height":724},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/whats-on-the-horizon-for-outlook-com#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"What&#8217;s on the Horizon for Outlook.com"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/","name":"Litmus","description":"Are you getting the most out of your email marketing?","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/#organization","name":"Litmus Software","url":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/featured-image.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/featured-image.png","width":600,"height":314,"caption":"Litmus Software"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/litmusapp","https:\/\/x.com\/litmusapp"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":""}]}},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5524"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121806,"href":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5524\/revisions\/121806"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5524"},{"taxonomy":"blog_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog_category?post=5524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}