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Microsoft Gives Outlook 2016 for Mac an Add-In Boost

• By Kurt Mackie
• March 21, 2017

Microsoft this week expanded the add-in capabilities in the Outlook 2016 for Mac e-mail and calendar solution.

Add-ins are applications that work within Outlook. Some are made by Microsoft, such as the Wunderlist and Dynamics 365 add-ins, while some come from other software vendors, such as Evernote and PayPal. There's even a Zendesk add-in that lets IT pros convert e-mails into help-desk tickets.

Microsoft first announced the add-in capability in September for Outlook 2016 for Mac users. It was described as a "preview" back then. On Monday, Microsoft indicated that add-in access was expanded to other Outlook for Mac users, plus Office 365 and Outlook.com users.

"We are now making add-ins available to all Outlook 2016 for Mac customers who have Exchange 2013 Service Pack 1 or higher, or Office 365 or Outlook.com mailboxes," Microsoft's announcement stated.

Presumably, the add-ins capability is no longer at the preview stage, since add-in applications are more broadly available in the Office Store.

In addition to the expanded add-ins capability, the ability of Outlook for Mac to use the Mac Touch Bar was added last week for users of MacBook Pro devices, Microsoft indicated. The Mac Touch Bar is a set of keys located at the top of a keyboard that show common actions to take in the context of various applications. In the case of Outlook 2016 for Mac, the Mac Touch Bar integrates with Outlook's e-mail and calendar applications.