Microsoft Outlook Website Getting Redesigned Ribbon Toolbar
Today when I signed into my Hotmail account using Outlook.com website in my web browser, I noticed a brand new redesigned Ribbon toolbar displaying at the top of Microsoft Outlook page.
UPDATE: If you want to hide or remove the new Ribbon toolbar on your Outlook account page, following article will help you:
[Tip] Hide or Remove Ribbon from Microsoft Outlook Website
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Following screenshot shows the new Ribbon toolbar added to my Hotmail account:
As you can see in the above screenshot, there are 2 tabs available on the Ribbon toolbar: Home and View. Home is the default tab and contains lots of buttons such as New mail, delete, move, etc.
View tab contains options to customize the account UI such as show/hide folder pane and reading pane, view settings, show hide message preview text, change density, etc as shown in following screenshot:
There was a tooltip or toast displaying at the end of the Ribbon toolbar telling that we can customize the Ribbon UI look-n-feel using the drop-down arrow button. We can select between Simplified or Classic ribbon UI.
When I clicked on the small Arrow button given at the end of the new Ribbon toolbar, I got a “Layout” menu containing following 2 options:
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- Classic Ribbon
- Simplified Ribbon
The default option is Simplified ribbon which shows a minimal toolbar in Outlook. When I selected Classic Ribbon option, the toolbar switched to a standard or full Ribbon toolbar as shown in following screenshot:
In my opinion, Simplified Ribbon looks better than full classic Ribbon toolbar.
We can also customize the buttons appearance on the Ribbon toolbar. There is a 3-dots menu button available on the Ribbon toolbar. When we click on the 3-dots button, we get an option “Customize” which allows us to add/remove buttons on the Ribbon toolbar.
Following screenshot shows the Customize window to show/hide buttons on Ribbon toolbar:
The new Ribbon toolbar is very fast and responsive. I’m not sure whether this UI is new or old but I received this new redesigned UI today in my Hotmail account.
UPDATE:
Our reader Sanjeev shared more information about this new feature. There is a dedicated page about this feature rollout at official Microsoft 365 Roadmap website.The feature has been named as “Outlook Simplified and Classic Ribbons“.
Following is the official description of this feature:
Outlook on the Web will be adding support for two new ribbon types. Simplified and classic. These ribbons are modeled after classic Outlook for Windows simplified and classic ribbons, to provide a more familiar experience across apps.
Feature ID: 88101
Added to roadmap: 9/7/2022
Last modified: 9/7/2022
Product(s): Outlook
Cloud instance(s): Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant)
Platform(s): Web
Release phase(s): General Availability
Have you also received this new UI in your Microsoft Account page (Outlook, Hotmail, MSN or Windows Live email account)? Feel free to share your opinion and feedback about this new Outlook UI in comments section.
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Looks like they added this feature in roadmap now.
microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?filters=&searchterms=88101
Is it possible to hide the ribbon? I find both layouts very annoying!
^^ I’m afraid you can’t.
Hi, I agree with JP, the feature is not helping me, it rather delays me in my work, instead of being helpful.
It should be made possible, to hide the ribbon from the view.
I saw your article about Microsoft’s re-designed ribbon appearing at the top of Outlook web. It made its presence known in my email inbox and atop my calendar.
Here’s the thing: I like a bigger screen view, and even the simplified ribbon takes up a lot of space at the top of my screen.
But the “hide ribbon” feature appears to have disappeared. Help!
I don’t find it very useful and often the buttons are repeated (especially on a message, all commands are in the ribbon and the bottom of the email).
I hope they’ll offer to hide it all together soon.
Please allow a hide ribbon option. If I wanted a ribbon I would use the Outlook desktop app.
Do these people even understand that the purpose of Outlook is to view e-mail? All this update does is take space away from viewing e-mails! I mean, what the hell is this “Home” and “View” tab stuff at the top that DOUBLES the real estate by the old layout? If I wanted to change any of that stuff, I would go to settings to do it. I don’t need a ribbon wasting space all day, every day “just because”. The constant changes, just to change are becoming unbearable.
I agree with Paul’s comment. I use the online version because I dislike the Outlook desktop app.
Work around:
Right click on the ribbon, click on “inspect element”, then on the html code search for data-app-section=”Ribbon”, right click on that and delete the element.
Make sure to activate shortcuts first so you can just press “N” and be able to write new mail.
Please include an option to hide the ribbon. It is taking up too much space and is not useful at all in the web app version.
True to form, Microsoft keeps adding additional visual pollution and clutter to the web app and does not allow users to switch them off. This new unnecessary ribbon just removed valuable vertical screen real estate I need. While I have been able to remove a lot of the junk MS keeps adding (focused on useless page elements), this one cannot be removed because the ability to initiate a new email is on this ribbon and there are no other ways around it that I can find (yet). Another fail by MS.
It’s only very ugly and takes up a bunch of space. Why would we want to hide it?
There needs to be a way to hide this ribbon, it’s not helpful and takes up way to much space
The implementation of new ribbon and the layout is very annoying. It just takes up a bunch of spaces, shrinking the height of reading panel vertically. What a awful design. Give us option to hide this ribbon.
I just deeply, deeply hate it when Microsoft decides to make our work lives so much worse. We are a captive audience with no alternative. My hatred of Microsoft’s approach knows no bounds.
The only solution I could find is to block the element, but the ribbon still takes the same space, it just appears blank.
Is there an alternative SIMPLIFIED web reader that we can use instead of outlook web? I just can’t take this anymore!!
My mother accesses her Hotmail account through Outlook.com on an iPad – she gets this new ribbon but is having a lot of issues with it in Safari.
If I log into my Hotmail account on the same iPad I don’t seem to have this new ribbon and all works fine (as my mother’s used to).
Anyone any ideas why this is??
This new ribbon is horrendous…. It’s removed the templates feature and moving the insert signature option up to the top of the email away from where you’re actually typing. It’s completely broken work flow.
Agreed with the opinion of everyone dislike the new ribbon. Should be hide within user side settings! Microsoft should re-consider the specification right now!!
I would like to have the Format Text ribbon show up automatically at the bottom of a new message, like it did before. It’s annoying and time-consuming to click the Home button to create a new message, then click the Format Text button to format it. Sigh. I’ve searched for how to do that, but can’t seem to find anything.
Yes the new feature of the ribbon is annoying and making difficult to navigate and obstructing the views – in the mobile outlook too. Many times happens to hit the ribbon while scrolling emails it’s created several empty drafts unnecessarily. The MS developers should invest their time in making convenient features instead of creating this kind of annoying items. The “new mail”, the “new event” blue ribbons at the bottom should be removed immediately or provide an option to disable or enable.