Unable to edit files (eg. Word, excel) attached in email when open in New Outlook, OWA

Question

Unable to edit files (eg. Word, excel) attached in email when open in New Outlook, OWA. This issue is on all platforms i..e Android, iOS and Windows. The message we get on the screen is: Read-Only - Adding data to this location is not allowed. You can save changes to a location allowed by your organization. If we save the doc using save as it allows us to edit but not directly. Just to test, we added Gmail account in android outlook app and we were able to edit the doc directly so it's just happening with the corporate email configured in outlook. Please assist in get getting this issue resolved. Thanks!

Answer 1

Hi @Kumar, Brajesh ，

If we save the doc using save as it allows us to edit but not directly.

Do you mean the file extension of the attachment is .doc which means "Word 97-2003 Document" as illustrated in the table in Office file formats?

If this is the case, seems like currently you would have to use the workaround as you mentioned. Because for 2007 Office system or Microsoft Office 2003 files, only "View-Only" support is provided by the document collaboration experience in Outlook Web App for Microsoft 365. (New Outlook is inspired by OWA so I assume the same applies to New Outlook.)

Reference: Microsoft 365 users can't edit an Office document directly from an email message in Outlook Web App

---

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".
Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.