M365 Roundup, December 2024: New Outlook Goes Opt-Out
TL;DR
- Starting in January 2025, Microsoft begins toggling SMBs on Microsoft 365 business plans into new Outlook automatically, with enterprise licenses following in 2026.
- Monthly billing for annual term subscriptions gets a standardized 5% price increase across Buy Online, CSP, and MCA-E starting April 1, 2025.
- Viva Goals retires on December 31, 2025, and Microsoft Search in Bing is deprecated on March 31, 2025.
- Exchange Online's new Message trace entered public preview in December 2024 with up to 90 days of historical data and subject-line filtering.
- Teams is shipping scheduled channel messages, message forwarding, channel video clips, and pop-out meeting panes between January and March 2025.
December 2024's wave is about money and migrations: new Outlook flips from opt-in to opt-out for small business tenants in January 2025, monthly billing on annual subscriptions picks up a 5% premium in April, and two products got their retirement papers. Teams, meanwhile, quietly shipped its most practical batch of features in months. Everything that matters, grouped by product.
One piece of our own news first. December 2024 marked the launch of CloudCapsule, our automated tool for assessing Microsoft 365 tenants against the CIS Controls. We built it to streamline tenant assessments to a trusted standard, raise the tide of security across the space, and help MSPs understand the why behind every policy configuration.
Beyond automated evidence collection for the CIS Controls, it detects tenant misconfigurations against security best practices, and you can run your first assessment against a tenant free.
The two changes that touch every customer
New Outlook migration goes opt-out
After several years of opt-in, Microsoft is transitioning new Outlook to an opt-out model. Small and medium-sized businesses on Microsoft 365 for business plans begin moving in January 2025, with Microsoft 365 enterprise licenses following in 2026. Full announcement: What's new and coming to Microsoft Outlook, Ignite 2024 (opens in new tab).
Users get notice in the application before the toggle, can opt out under Outlook Options > General, and can switch back to classic Outlook after being moved. Users will not be toggled if any of the following is true:
- The admin opted them out of automatic toggling per Admin-Controlled Migration to New Outlook (opens in new tab)
- The new Outlook toggle is hidden via policy
- A perpetual license is in use
- The account is on-premises
Monthly billing on annual terms gets a 5% markup
Starting April 1, 2025, Microsoft standardizes the monthly billing price for all new and renewing annual term subscriptions. In Microsoft's words: "This standardization will introduce a 5% price update to the monthly billing plans for annual subscriptions across Buy Online, CSP, and MCA-E. By standardizing the billing structure, we ensure consistency and transparency across all platforms. Customers who want to keep their existing pricing may choose to switch from monthly billing to annual billing with upfront payment for their annual term subscription at their renewal date."
Full announcement: Flexible billing for Microsoft 365 Copilot, pricing updates for annual subscriptions and Teams Phone (opens in new tab). Renewal conversations through Q1 2025 should put the monthly-versus-upfront tradeoff in front of every client.
Microsoft Teams: ten features, mostly quality of life
Scheduled channel messages
Users can schedule channel messages for a specific date and time directly from the message compose box, then edit or cancel them before posting. Rollout: early February 2025, completing by mid-February 2025.
Pop-out Chat, Copilot, and Notes panes in meetings
A pop-out icon appears at the top of the Notes, Chat, and Copilot side panes in meetings, on by default. Selecting it moves the pane into a separate resizable window, so users can watch the chat and the meeting notes at the same time.
Rollout: early February 2025, completing by late February 2025.
Message forwarding to and from channels
Users can finally forward channel posts and replies: select the three-dot More actions menu on any channel message and choose Forward.
Rollout: late January 2025, completing by early February 2025.
Forwarding Loop components
Messages containing Loop components can be forwarded from the More actions menu, with permissions set for recipients.
Rollout: late January 2025, completing by early February 2025.
Video clips in channels
The Record video clip option, previously chat-only, comes to channels. Users can record themselves, their screen, or audio only, and post the clip as a new post or reply.
Rollout: mid-January 2025, completing by late January 2025.
Private moderator replies in events
Moderators can respond discreetly to individual attendee questions during Teams events, keeping sensitive or personal follow-ups out of the broadcast. Rollout: early January 2025, completing in late January 2025.
Sharing apps and Copilot agents in chats and channels
Users can share apps and Microsoft 365 Copilot agents in Teams chats and channels. Sharing requires no Copilot license; using the shared apps and agents does.
Rollout: early January 2025, completing by late January 2025.
Watermarked meetings open to anonymous participants
Before this rollout, unauthenticated users joining a watermarked meeting could only hear audio. After it, anonymous users see a watermark of the guest name they entered on the pre-join screen and can access all meeting content. The watermark policy in the Teams admin center is unchanged, since anonymous guest support is not tied to a policy.
Rollout: mid-March 2025 (previously early December), completing by late March 2025 (previously late December).
Share meeting recap notes to Outlook
Teams Premium and Microsoft 365 Copilot licensed users get a Share to Outlook option under the Share button on the Recap tab, sending AI-generated meeting notes and tasks to Outlook.
Rollout: late February 2025, completing by mid-March 2025.
Meeting recap shareable as a link
Participants can share a link to the meeting recap from the meeting thumbnail in chat and from the Recap tab, with anyone in the organization. Recipients without access to the recording or transcript must request it before viewing.
Rollout: mid-February 2025, completing by late February 2025.
Microsoft Outlook: PST files and mobile attachments
PST support arrives in new Outlook
New Outlook gains real Outlook Data File (.pst) handling: move, copy, delete, flag and unflag, mark read or unread, and set categories on email in a .pst file, plus create, delete, move, and rename folders. Users can also drag and drop emails between a .pst file and a mailbox in both directions. Further .pst capabilities are planned for future releases. Rollout: early March 2025, completing by late March 2025.
Delegates can create calendar categories
Delegates in new Outlook for Windows and web can create and manage categories in the account owner's calendar.
Rollout: mid-February 2025, completing by mid-March 2025.
Attach emails while composing on iOS and Android
Outlook mobile users get an Attach email option behind the paper clip icon in the compose window, for attaching individual emails to a new message rather than only forwarding them.
Rollout: early January 2025, completing by late February 2025.
Microsoft 365 apps: two retirements and a Forms upgrade
Viva Goals retires December 31, 2025
Microsoft will maintain Viva Goals' availability, accessibility, and security through retirement on December 31, 2025. Customers using it for OKR tracking have a year to find a new home.
Microsoft Search in Bing deprecated March 31, 2025
Users should transition to Microsoft Search via Office.com, SharePoint Online, or Microsoft365.com.
Forms data syncs to Excel desktop
Users can pull an open form's live result data into Excel desktop and create new forms from within the Excel desktop app.
Rollout: mid-November 2024, completing by mid-February 2025.
Admin and security: message trace, Loop governance, printing
New Message trace in Exchange Online (public preview)
The rebuilt Message trace in the Exchange admin center entered public preview in December 2024. Key changes:
- Extended query range: up to 90 days of historical data for near-real-time queries, 10 days per query. Tenants start with 30 days of history, building over time to 90.
- Subject filter: Starts with, Ends with, and Contains functions, with special character support.
- Delivery status filter: new searches for Quarantined, Filtered as spam, and Getting status.
Full announcement: Announcing Public Preview of the New Message Trace in Exchange Online (opens in new tab).
Defender for Office 365 accepts third-party report buttons
Organizations using third-party report message solutions in Outlook (KnowBe4, Hoxhunt, Cofense, Proofpoint add-ins, and so on) can configure Defender for Office 365 to automatically forward user-reported messages to Microsoft for analysis. Setup:
- User reported settings: options for third-party reporting tools (opens in new tab)
- User reported settings: message submission format (opens in new tab)
Rollout: early February 2025, completing by mid-February 2025.
Loop workspaces get real admin management
Admins can manage membership, ownership, deletion, and restoration of Loop workspaces in the SharePoint Embedded admin center or PowerShell. Changes to workspaces created after December 2024 surface in the Loop experience beginning December 2024; workspaces created before December 2024 catch up by March 2025. Background: Manage SharePoint Embedded containers in SharePoint Admin Center (opens in new tab).
Rollout: late January 2025 (previously late December), completing by late April 2025 (previously late March).
Universal Print on macOS hits general availability
The rollout is complete: all commercial cloud customers can print from macOS devices to Universal Print. Setup details in the public documentation (opens in new tab).
Copilot: meeting prep, shared prompts, and image input
Meeting preparation summaries in Outlook
Copilot summarizes key information ahead of upcoming meetings: purpose, action items, pre-reads, and related discussions, drawn from the Microsoft Graph. Each attendee gets a unique summary based on the content they have permission to access.
Rollout: mid-January 2025, completing by mid-February 2025.
Prompt autosuggestions in Business Chat
Work tab users get prompt autosuggestions drawn from Microsoft's curated Copilot Lab prompt library and their own prompt history.
Rollout: mid-December 2024, completing by late January 2025.
Share a Business Chat prompt with a co-worker
Users can share prompts as links to Microsoft 365 Copilot Business Chat (BizChat), which others in the tenant can try for themselves.
Rollout: late December 2025 (previously mid-December), completing by early January 2025 (previously late December).
Image input in Copilot
Users signed in with an Entra account can upload images in both Work and Web Copilot and ask questions about them, analysis, description, and so on. Rollout: late January 2025 (previously late December), completing by late February 2025 (previously mid-January).
Copilot agents in group chats
Users can find and add Microsoft 365 Copilot agents to group chats for collaborative scenarios.
Rollout: early February 2025, completing by mid-February 2025.
Easier deletion of Copilot activity history
Users can reach the My Microsoft account Settings and Privacy page directly from Teams and delete Copilot activity history across all Microsoft 365 apps, instead of navigating to their Microsoft account separately.
Rollout: early January 2025 (previously mid-December), completing by late January 2025 (previously late December).
Frequently asked questions
Can users go back to classic Outlook after being toggled?
Yes. Users get notice in the application before being toggled, can opt out under Outlook Options > General, and can toggle back to classic Outlook after migration. Admins can also opt users out of automatic migration entirely via policy.
How do customers avoid the 5% monthly billing increase?
Switch from monthly billing to annual billing with upfront payment at the renewal date. The increase only applies to monthly billing plans on annual term subscriptions.
Who is exempt from the new Outlook automatic toggle?
Users are not toggled if the admin opted them out via the migration policy, the new Outlook toggle is hidden by policy, a perpetual license is in use, or the account is on-premises.
A month of Microsoft changes, checked in 60 seconds
Every update wave shifts defaults and settings across your tenants. CloudCapsule runs a CIS-mapped assessment of 250+ controls per tenant in about a minute, so December's changes never become next quarter's findings. Note: it does not run against M365 dev tenants.
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Written by
Nick Ross
CEO · Microsoft MVP · Founder, T-Minus 365
Nick is not just a CEO, he's a respected thought leader and influencer in the MSP space. Tens of thousands of MSPs learn through his YouTube channel, T-Minus365. Nick has been honored as a three-time Microsoft MVP for his educational content; his expertise and influence are the backbone of our mission, ensuring that you are in the best hands when it comes to security.
Nick joined Pax8 in 2017, where he would ultimately oversee product management for PSA and Microsoft integrations. Following his tenure at Pax8, Nick has continued to demonstrate his leadership prowess as an executive at various MSPs, culminating in his most recent role at Sourcepass.
Nick holds a Bachelor's Degree in Business Management from Florida State University, as well as a Minor Degree in Entrepreneurship. In his free time, Nick is an avid hiker, reader, and fitness-junkie.
