New outlook tasks function utterly broken - where does product feedback go?

Question

New outlook tasks function utterly broken - where does product feedback go?

Josh Turnbull 20

I've been forced onto new outlook (thanks MS for making me completely relearn a tool at the drop of a hat, it's fine, it's not like I've got work to do) and found existing recurring tasks were no longer giving me the reminders I had set up in old outlook. I've since deleted and recreated them, and they're completely unusable for a number of reasons:- Firstly, I had a recurring task simply reappear with the same due date when I had marked it as completed. I'd done this maybe 20 times so can assume this was a bug.

When opening the separate tasks blade, I clicked the button to mark all previous iterations of the task complete and catch up to the current day. It then skipped forward a couple of days in the future. And even though it was recurring on weekdays, it skipped forward to Saturday:

I then opened the recurrence menu, selected weekdays again, and the due date skipped forward a few days again. I could repeat this and it would skip the due date forward by a day each subsequent time. Notably, the completed task list was not showing any of these skipped days. This is a clearly a bug; setting configuration information should not be changing the state of an item

It has been noted elsewhere, but worth reiterating again: flagging emails no longer appears in the To Do list, making the flagging feature functionally redundant. We were previously able to track the status of emails that needed some kind of follow up easily from the inbox screen, but now we have to do it from the new tasks screen, which can take quite frustrating amounts of time to load

Are there known resolutions to these issues?

There are a number of other complaints to be had about new outlook, and clearly the community hates it too. At the very least these bugs need fixing, and they should be reminded that they have millions of users who don't need their work disrupted just because some devs had a bunch of half-baked ideas. According to Q&A assist, you can give feedback through the Outlook interface (I can't find this) or UserVoice (retired in 2021). The feedback page I have found is here, which doesn't include any satisfactory answers that I can find so far: https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/forum/89a8afa3-2e1c-ec11-b6e7-0022481f8472

Laurel Hell 15 Reputation points

2024-11-04T18:51:07.33+00:00

Ended up here because I am so confused with this broken Task system. I made a group and now it says "Drag here to add lists." Okay... What does that mean? I tried dragging a list into that "group" and I tried dragging a task into that "group" and neither action did anything. I also tried dragging that text itself and it did nothing.

So far the most simple action is not possible.
Anonymous

2025-03-24T16:45:00.2533333+00:00

Laurel -

I just had the same issue. I was clicking 'Add Group' and getting equally frustrated. Instead, click "+ New list" - it's to the left on the same line as the little plus for adding a Group. Then create a Group (if you want) to group lists together. The other way was I right clicked on my tasks and selected Duplicate. But I have hundreds of items there, so a blank list was better for me. I hope this helps!
Stephen Lightfoot 5 Reputation points

2025-08-14T10:43:32.97+00:00

Still not working in August 2025. Opened Outlook (NEW) to start the working day today, and no calendar events at all (there are loads of events this week). Outlook (Classic) works just fine, all tasks and events shown without issue. Classic though, grinds to a halt regularly and has become almost unusable, despite streamlining to work more like NEW. I have to keep switching back to Classic so often, just to be able to do things, when it's not freezing. Not a great state to be in.

2 answers

Your answer

Laurel Hell 15 Reputation points

2024-11-04T18:51:07.33+00:00

Ended up here because I am so confused with this broken Task system. I made a group and now it says "Drag here to add lists." Okay... What does that mean? I tried dragging a list into that "group" and I tried dragging a task into that "group" and neither action did anything. I also tried dragging that text itself and it did nothing.

So far the most simple action is not possible.
Anonymous

2025-03-24T16:45:00.2533333+00:00

Laurel -

I just had the same issue. I was clicking 'Add Group' and getting equally frustrated. Instead, click "+ New list" - it's to the left on the same line as the little plus for adding a Group. Then create a Group (if you want) to group lists together. The other way was I right clicked on my tasks and selected Duplicate. But I have hundreds of items there, so a blank list was better for me. I hope this helps!
Stephen Lightfoot 5 Reputation points

2025-08-14T10:43:32.97+00:00

Still not working in August 2025. Opened Outlook (NEW) to start the working day today, and no calendar events at all (there are loads of events this week). Outlook (Classic) works just fine, all tasks and events shown without issue. Classic though, grinds to a halt regularly and has become almost unusable, despite streamlining to work more like NEW. I have to keep switching back to Classic so often, just to be able to do things, when it's not freezing. Not a great state to be in.

Answer 1

Hi @Josh Turnbull

Welcome to our forum!

I then opened the recurrence menu, selected weekdays again, and the due date skipped forward a few days again. I could repeat this and it would skip the due date forward by a day each subsequent time.

Thanks for the feedback! Based on my testing, this issue was reproduced in my test environment.

User's image

It has been noted elsewhere, but worth reiterating again: flagging emails no longer appears in the To Do list, making the flagging feature functionally redundant.

Yes, this scenario is expected behavior. The flagged email list only shows tasks from messages flagged in the last 30 days. It’ll show a maximum of 100 of your most recently flagged messages. Flagged calendar events won’t be converted to tasks in To Do and won’t appear in the flagged email list.

In the meantime, I submit this feedback to the official feedback portal, and I have post here, and you could vote for it. If you have any suggestions or ideas, it's suggested that you could post here. Hope Microsoft will notice this in the future.

Thank you for your understanding and support!

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".

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SokiGuo-MSFT 31,821 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2024-06-11T01:52:48.9333333+00:00

Hi @Josh Turnbull

Did you need any more help with this question? If not, could you please mark "Accept Answer" on the appropriate answer so other users can reference it?And, if you have any further questions do let us know.

Answer 2

Microsoft has a dedicated feedback platform called the "Feedback Hub" where users can submit feedback and suggestions for Microsoft products, including Outlook. To access the Feedback Hub, users can click on the "Help & Feedback" button in the bottom right corner of the Outlook window and select "Give Feedback." Additionally, users can visit the Outlook UserVoice page to submit and vote on feature requests and bug reports.

As for the issues mentioned in the question, it seems that there are several bugs in the new Outlook task management system. It is recommended that the user submits a bug report through the Feedback Hub or the Outlook UserVoice page to bring these issues to the attention of the product team.

References: