Office for Mac 2016 - Outlook not fit for purpose?

Billies Bangers · 3 Dec 2015 at 22:43

Simple question - is MS Office for Mac 2016 Outlook module fit for purpose?

My employer has provided me with the latest Home Business version so I can work from home. Whilst Word etc. work as expected I have found using Outlook to act as client for Gmail to be truly awful. Much worse than Apple Mail, Postbox, Thunderbird or just about any other email app.

The main issue is around the 'sync pending for this folder' problem. With just one search on Google you will find this a common problem of many years standing and yet never appears to get resolved. That's without even going into the issue of no CalDav support so no calendar. This application is not cheap to say the least and yet MS appear to be in no rush to resolve these issues.

What is even worse is the fallout from the sync issue. I have 4 email accounts. Let's say I decide to send from account A. I may not notice that account A has the 'sync pending for this folder' message and send the email anyway. The email does send without any problems. However, if the sync pending message is on account A then bizarrely the message is sent from one of my other email accounts. I sent one email to a client yesterday only to find it had been received from my wife's - embarrassing or what?

Needless to say Outlook no longer resides in The Dock.

Deleted member 77746 · 5 Dec 2015 at 12:44

What's up with WebMail and a short cut on the desktop?

Billies Bangers · 5 Dec 2015 at 22:42

mrbell1984 said:
What's up with WebMail and a short cut on the desktop?

I can use a host of email applications - all of which work. The point I make is that the premier global office email office application with premier pricing doesn't and this has been a long standing issue which still hasn't been fixed.

Caged · 6 Dec 2015 at 11:46

Outlook (on Windows and Mac) is an Exchange client, and to try and use it for anything else is going to frustrate you.

Deleted member 77746 · 6 Dec 2015 at 13:42

If it doesn't work for you OP then don't use it. Find something that does work. I dare bet web mail works every time. Miles better than clients.

Billies Bangers · 6 Dec 2015 at 13:59

Caged said:
Outlook (on Windows and Mac) is an Exchange client, and to try and use it for anything else is going to frustrate you.

Been using it on home PC's since the early nineties (obviously none Exchange) and I've never had any issues with it. In fact I'm using it now on my home Windows PC's as client for Gmail and it never misses a heartbeat so what you assert is clearly incorrect.

There only ever appears to be an issue when used on Apple hardware (even when people are using Exchange) as the many complaints online testify too. This sync folder issue is also present using Exchange.

Billies Bangers · 6 Dec 2015 at 14:02

mrbell1984 said:
If it doesn't work for you OP then don't use it. Find something that does work. I dare bet web mail works every time. Miles better than clients.

I've been using Apple Mail and Postbox for years - that isn't the issue. My employer has paid for this application as they want me to work from home and use Outlook.

I'm not fussed what I use, my employer will have to sort it out. However, I do think it's pretty poor that a product which costs hundreds of pounds does not do what it says on the tin.

Caged · 6 Dec 2015 at 14:38

Billies Bangers said:
Been using it on home PC's since the early nineties (obviously none Exchange) and I've never had any issues with it. In fact I'm using it now on my home Windows PC's as client for Gmail and it never misses a heartbeat so what you assert is clearly incorrect.

Outlook is not a general purpose email/calendaring client. Maybe in the past it was, and maybe you don't struggle particularly with it on Windows when used with Gmail, but it's not designed to be a standards-compliant groupware client, and it isn't. As evidenced by the way you can't use any calendaring service with it natively that isn't Exchange (or pretending to be Exchange).

Your options for Gmail on Mac are the Apple Mail client, the web interface, or something like Mailbox/Airmail. I appreciate that you think it should be something that it isn't due to the price tag attached to it, but I am informing you that my experience doesn't show that to be the case. Save yourself the frustration.

Billies Bangers · 6 Dec 2015 at 22:40

Caged said:
Outlook is not a general purpose email/calendaring client. Maybe in the past it was, and maybe you don't struggle particularly with it on Windows when used with Gmail, but it's not designed to be a standards-compliant groupware client, and it isn't. As evidenced by the way you can't use any calendaring service with it natively that isn't Exchange (or pretending to be Exchange).

Your options for Gmail on Mac are the Apple Mail client, the web interface, or something like Mailbox/Airmail. I appreciate that you think it should be something that it isn't due to the price tag attached to it, but I am informing you that my experience doesn't show that to be the case. Save yourself the frustration.

I will leave it to my employer to sort this out. I do however think that the package should be advertised with the caveat that it isn't likely to play nicely with none Exchange servers. However, I have already stated that a very cursory search on Google will show that the sync folder issue is also a long standing problem even when using Exchange.

Caged · 6 Dec 2015 at 22:52

I had a brief look and Microsoft are very thin on the details regarding what Outlook is for. It's advertised as working with Hotmail and Outlook.com on the personal Office 365 pages, and talked about in conjunction with Exchange on the business Office 365 pages. I don't know when that changed.

Outlook 2016 for Mac has been a very mixed bag for us. It's an improvement over 2011 (not difficult) but it's luck of the draw whether it works nicely for someone or causes a load of problems.

Billies Bangers · 6 Dec 2015 at 23:30

Caged said:
I had a brief look and Microsoft are very thin on the details regarding what Outlook is for. It's advertised as working with Hotmail and Outlook.com on the personal Office 365 pages, and talked about in conjunction with Exchange on the business Office 365 pages. I don't know when that changed.

Outlook 2016 for Mac has been a very mixed bag for us. It's an improvement over 2011 (not difficult) but it's luck of the draw whether it works nicely for someone or causes a load of problems.

When setting up accounts it actually provides the option for Gmail, Yahoo etc. along with Outlook.com so I'm not sure what is going on here either.

MagicBoy · 7 Dec 2015 at 14:10

I don't understand why they provided you with Outlook 2016 for running Gmail? It's designed for use with Exchange primarily.

Billies Bangers · 8 Dec 2015 at 22:53

MagicBoy said:
I don't understand why they provided you with Outlook 2016 for running Gmail? It's designed for use with Exchange primarily.

I can only assume my employers thought as Outlook in Windows works perfectly fine for their staff with Gmail, the same would be true with Apple hardware/software. Just shows how wrong one can be.

At least all the other new Office 2016 applications appear to work without issue.

Caged · 8 Dec 2015 at 23:01

When did you get a prompt about setting up Gmail or Yahoo in Outlook?

I'm blaming your IT dept more than I'm blaming Microsoft for this particular instance of dropping the ball. If they're going to support Mac users then they should have a decent feel for the platform.

Deleted member 77746 · 20 Dec 2015 at 18:04

Billies Bangers said:
I've been using Apple Mail and Postbox for years - that isn't the issue. My employer has paid for this application as they want me to work from home and use Outlook.

I'm not fussed what I use, my employer will have to sort it out. However, I do think it's pretty poor that a product which costs hundreds of pounds does not do what it says on the tin.

Means you may need training on it because it works fine for 100% of the users that use it at this end.

if you think it doesn't work tell your employer what doesn't work and let them work it out. Until then use webmail.