I believe I've discovered an easily reproducible bug in Outlook 2011 for Mac / Exchange 2007 SP3 Update Rollup 5 This bug relates to Outlook 2011 14.1.3 on OS X 10.7.2. Here's the situation: I have an user in Eastern Europe (Turkey) GMT +3. Included in the Mac operating system. Supports smart folders and robust filters. Tech — Outlook 2011 review: Exchange parity comes to Mac OS X Outlook, Microsoft's Exchange client, returns to the Mac with Office 2011.
Even though many of us in the Orbiting HQ use Mac OS X these days, the latest Mac version of Microsoft Office hasn't generated much buzz among the staff at Ars. That's understandable really; if you're not working in a corporate environment, solutions like iWork or Google's cloud services (as well as OpenOffice and other fringier products) leave little reason to stay in the Microsoft orbit.
The stylish and organized interface provides quick access to basic editing tools, such as the “Brush Tool”, the “Eraser Tool”, the “Gradient Tool”, the “Horizontal Type Tool” and much more. Adobe photoshop cc torrent download for mac.
But there are many of us who do still need to use Office, and on the Mac side of things, Office 2011 is here to show us what it can do that its predecessors couldn't. In later articles, we'll take a look at Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, but first up to bat is Outlook.
Those of you with keen memories will remember that, pre-Mac OS X, Mac users actually did have native versions of Outlook. These didn't ship with Office, which came with Outlook Express and later with Entourage, and they only worked with Exchange servers, but I remember using Outlook '98 (I think) as a young grad student.
The next three installments of Office all came with Entourage. The original version had workable Exchange support, but it gradually got better. Entourage is now history, though, and Outlook 2011 is here to meet your e-mail needs, especially if you work in a large Microsoft-dependent organization (referred to as LMDOs from here on out).
![Mac Mac](/uploads/1/2/6/3/126374146/817976154.jpg)
Setting it up for the first time is a cinch. For Exchange accounts, it's as simple as entering your e-mail address, username, and password. The same is true for Gmail, MobileMe, and the service Ars uses.
Up and running, it's actually a great e-mail client if you work for an LMDO. I have yet to come across anything I can't to do with Outlook 2011 that I'm currently able to do on the PC side of things, and I like the UI much better than Entourage.
Yes, I said it: from where I sit, Outlook 2011 is nicer to stare at than Entourage. The borders around windows are much smaller, and I'm happy about the introduction of the ribbon, a series of icon-filled tabs that make the toolbox unnecessary. That last statement may draw ire in the comments, but the ribbon can be hidden, and the tabs make finding functions easy and logical.
The ability to have a unified inbox is a big improvement over Entourage. Previously, each IMAP and Exchange account would have their own sections in the sidebar, which was a pain as it meant scrolling down to see the details. This, therefore, is a great step forward. You can arrange your messages by date, sender, conversation, and so on, as you'd expect. Another neat touch is the ability to preview attachments, something I'd love to see in the Windows version.
Outlook On Mac
Global address books work without a hitch and, to my mind, look much nicer than on Windows; each contact gets a little box with the relevant details instead of a line in a table. You can sync your personal contacts with Address Book, but I find that using sync services can lead to contacts multiplying out of control. Then again this also happens when syncing with Google, so it's not something for which I'd blame Microsoft.
Searches can be performed in the app or by Spotlight, and the internal search works very well. Spotlight searches may very well be faster than those done within Outlook, although I couldn't say for sure because they were all pretty quick. This is down to the fact that the Mac Business Unit (MBU) has revamped the bits under the hood significantly.
Entourage stored all your e-mails in a single giant database. This meant that, for a long time, Spotlight searches were out of the question—until a point upgrade worked some sort of magic that allowed Spotlight to index the giant file. It also meant that Time Machine backups got to be huge, as each new e-mail meant the database file had to be copied anew.
Now, your e-mails are individual files, meaning faster indexing, faster backing up, and less chance for catastrophe. If you're an LMDO user and just have a single Mac that you access your work e-mail from, this is a good thing.
Probably the most requested feature has been support for .pst files, which is the format that archived messages are stored in. And yes, Outlook 2011 can handle .pst files. The way they're handled makes a lot of sense, but at the same time has dashed my hopes of true platform independence.
Here's what I wanted: to be able to work within the confines of a LMDO and use a mixture of Macs and PCs. Or an iMac and a MacBook. It's 2010 now, and it ought to be time. As I'm sure is standard in many LMDOs, a user like me has a remote drive. This remote drive is where all my e-mails live, along with files, folders, and anything else I consider important.
That's good for a number of reasons. It gets backed up regularly without me in the loop, which I appreciate, having experienced more than one laptop hard drive failure and the loss of data that goes with it. Since Windows uses that as my home drive, it also means that I can use a desktop in the office or a laptop in the field and have access to all the same stuff.
I hoped the arrival of Office 2011 and the replacement of Entourage with Outlook 2011 would mean that finally it wouldn't even matter what OS I used. The issue isn't so much my Exchange server mailbox, but its size, as set by the LMDO IT overlords. It fills up rather quickly, and the solution is to create an archive stored on that home drive. If you work at an LMDO you might do the same.
You can imagine my joy when I read that Outlook 2011 would finally handle these files. After moving to a LDMO in 2009 and using Windows daily, I longed to be able to move back to using a Mac at work, and this came one step closer to reality thanks to a kind soul who, instead of surplusing an older MacBook Pro, transferred it to me. Connecting to remote drives from the Mac was, and is, as painless as you might imagine. Whether plugged in via Ethernet or VPNing in from somewhere else, not a problem was encountered, although as Peter Bright will surely tell you at length, the way that OS X handles these remote drives, or rather their absence, can be more problematic.
Picture then, the look of disappointment on my face when, upon installing and setting up Outlook on this work machine, I found out that handling .pst files and actually using .pst files aren't the same thing. As I mentioned earlier, Outlook 2011 has a new file structure for your e-mails, consisting of individual files for each message. So instead of just pointing Outlook at the right network address, you import the archive. You can create new archives, but in an .olm format.
For someone who wants to be able to flit between Mac and PC at will, this is a serious problem, because it means you can't keep a single archive to which each machine is pointed. (Cue sad trombone.) It also means you can't really even have access to all the same e-mails on multiple Macs.
Theoretically, you could keep the Main Identity folder on that networked drive, but Microsoft doesn't recommend it as this causes performance issues, and given the way that OS X handles networked drives not being there anymore, I believe them.
Another sorely missing feature is CalDAV support. For a work e-mail client I don't really see this as a huge problem; I'm content using Gmail and MobileMe via a Web browser at work. The MBU knows that some users will want this feature but couldn't tell me if it might appear in a future update. For home use, or for using a mix of Exchange and other accounts, this might be a deal breaker. At home I'll be sticking to Mail and iCal, and I wish that wasn't the case.
For Mac-using office drones, on the other hand, Outlook 2011 is a big step forward in my opinion. We now have feature parity with our Windows-using colleagues, as well as a couple of features they don't have. The app isn't clunky or ugly, and as long as you can live with the limitations regarding multiple computers and the lack of CalDAV support, I see little reason not to upgrade from Entourage.
The Good
- Feature parity
- Previewing attachments
- Calendar view in e-mail meeting requests
- Decent-looking UI
- Significant changes to the backend mean better spotlight and Time Machine performance
The Bad
- Not being able to use multiple computers with the same account
- No CalDAV support
![Mac Mac](/uploads/1/2/6/3/126374146/953663261.png)
The Ugly
- Looks your Windows-using coworkers will give you
Verdict: Buy
Exchange Email, Security and Compliance, Usage tips
Update Feb 2015: Are you using Outlook 2015 for OS X? Read the note at the bottom.
I’m a Mac user. And Outlook for Mac makes me sad. That’s because, when compared to its Windows counterpart, Outlook for OS X (aka Outlook 2011) is an underperformer.
Maybe it’s because the Windows version was built in the same shop as the Exchange service. Or maybe Microsoft has an understandable bias to Windows. Regardless, us Apple lovers pay the price. In fact, Microsoft’s own knowledge base says that Mac users may see performance issues if they receive as few as 30 emails per day.
Some of the difference can be attributed to how each client connects to the Exchange server. I’m going to explain this. And, if you’re having Outlook OS X performance issues (if it freezes, crashes, or forces you to rebuild your Microsoft User identity), I’m going to offer some tips for getting Outlook 2011 performing at a higher level.
Outlook connection methods: Windows vs. OS X
Most Windows users connect to Exchange via RPC/HTTP(s), aka Outlook Anywhere. This proprietary protocol was made specifically for Outlook for Windows and the Exchange server. Its main advantage is that the complexity of the connection is a lot lower. Fewer moving parts means sturdier and faster connection.
There’s another protocol for connecting to Exchange servers: EWS (Exchange Web Services). Usb cd player for mac. This one is built around Web Services, which allows most platforms to build clients to utilize it. OS X cannot use RPC/HTTP(s), so Outlook for OS X uses EWS, which is the best available method.
EWS is more complex than RPC/HTTP(s). There are more moving parts required to make the connection smooth. It requires more overhead. And it’s slower.
If you’re a Mac user, you probably know this all too well.
How to optimize Outlook for OS X
Once you have a sense of the underlying protocol differences, you might think the situation is dire. But as a Mac user, there are things you can do to make things easier for you.
There are two categories I am going to concentrate on: mailbox size and disk health.
Mailbox size: Outlook optimization category #1
With Outlook for OS X, we’ve seen a direct relationship between mailbox size and client performance: the larger the mailbox grows, the more Outlook’s performance will suffer. It often comes to the point where your data gets corrupted and needs to be entirely rebuilt.
So, of the two optimization categories, mailbox size is far more impactful. It’s especially valuable if you’re a power user or you have a fairly large mailbox.
- Set a shorter mail retention policy. Outlook for OS X doesn’t like big mailboxes. So set a policy to delete messages that are, say, 90 or 180 or 360 days old. This will keep Outlook lighter and, thus, speedier. (The downside, of course, is that you lose all your old messages). If you’re an Intermedia customer, here’s guidance on setting a retention policy using HostPilot.
- Archive your mail without deleting it. EWS clients such as Outlook for Mac tend to communicate a lot more with the server because the connection type is not as efficient as their Window’s kin. The smaller the mailbox, the easier the communication. If you set up an email archiving policy on your sent or deleted items, you can remove your mail from the Exchange server, but keep it accessible on your local hard drive. This improves Outlook performance because it has fewer items to sync with the server. Here’s how to set up client-side archiving.
Please note: this is not the same thing as compliant email archiving.
If neither of these options work for you, we have a few more tips in our Outlook for OS X best practices in our Knowledge Base. But the two tips above are by far the most effective for reducing mailbox size and thus making Outlook more stable.
Disk Health: Outlook optimization category #2
Outlook for OS X loves to use your hard drive. Not only does it store all your mailbox data on your computer, but it also relies heavily on hard drive operations to review all the objects in your mailbox and confirm that they match the server. In addition, it reads your disk and verifies with the Exchange server every time you touch an object in your mailbox.
Because of this, your Mac’s disk health has a big impact on Outlook performance. So here are a few tips.
- Free up some space. Your hard drive will perform better when it has fewer items to sort through. In fact, disk performance tends to degrade significantly around 80% capacity. Here’s some guidance from Apple on increasing your disk space. If you want to see how much space you have, use the Disk Utility (located in Applications > Utilities).
- Upgrade to flash memory. Newer Macs use flash memory, which offers the latest and greatest in disk performance. If your hard drive is the cause of hardware performance problems, consider upgrading to a new machine with flash memory.
- Switch toOWA. If all else fails, give up on Outlook and start using the Outlook Web App (OWA). If you’re running Exchange 2013, OWA contains all of the features as the desktop version of Outlook—but, because it’s web-based, doesn’t have any performance issues. It even has an offline mode! If you’re an Intermedia customer, log into OWA here.
Update for Outlook 2015 (Added February, 2015)
So the version of Outlook for Mac—Outlook 2015— is here. The big question: will it perform better than Outlook 2011?
The jury is still out. However, I can tell you this: Outlook 2015 is still using the Exchange Web Services (EWS) protocol. This means it is still not as robust as Outlook for Windows.
Microsoft does claim there is a performance improvement, mainly based off database improvements that they’ve made. Instead of their old proprietary format, Outlook 2015 is using SQLite, which is a quicker and more compact database engine. Its source code is public domain, which means Microsoft has the rights to tweak in ways that optimize it for Outlook.
Another exciting update is that Microsoft claims to have removed the latency between e-mail delivery caused by EWS. This is in part due to the fact that Outlook 2015 will have push e-mail delivery, which allows it deliver emails instantly, similar to how Facebook message notifications appear the moment the message is received.
Here’s the good news: you can try it for yourself. Outlook 2015 can run side-by-side with Outlook 2011, so you can give it a test drive without fully committing to it.
Want to talk to us about Outlook for OS X?
Mac Os Outlook
If you’re an Intermedia customer, we’d be happy to talk to you about any Outlook performance issues you might be having. Call us at (800) 379-7729. Fl studio free trial download mac.
If you’re not an Intermedia customer, learn more about Intermedia’s Hosted Exchange—which, by the way, is extremely Mac-friendly. Ask us about free expert migration and a 30-day risk-free trial.
Like this resource? See more like it in our Resource Center
Outlook Exchange For Mac Os X 10.7
- Tags:
- admins,
- IT,
- system administration,