MS wants you to use the new outlook.

[Pew]

What if your mail server is only POP ? I use Apple computers so while we have MS Office products, there are some differences in the programs although Word and Excel don't seem much different. There's definitely shortcomings with Outlook on Mac though. They've been offering this "New Outlook" for years and it actually loses features that the "old" version had ! That said, I thought it mostly a difference in the interface and that underneath was still mostly the same.

I can still connect a POP box to my outlook, both old and new versions but I'm using O365 business which allows the 'desktop version' of Outlook with unchanged POP/IMAP support. MS's site only states "with limited support". The Windows Mail app still allows POP/IMAP.

 

[Carmudgeon]

What if your mail server is only POP ? I use Apple computers so while we have MS Office products, there are some differences in the programs although Word and Excel don't seem much different. There's definitely shortcomings with Outlook on Mac though. They've been offering this "New Outlook" for years and it actually loses features that the "old" version had ! That said, I thought it mostly a difference in the interface and that underneath was still mostly the same.

I remember when it was a major win for Mac users to finally be able to connect to Exchange servers, but I don't recall the Mac version ever having any parity, or intent to have parity, with the flagship Windows version. MS was going to keep those jewels for its users, and gave Mac users Outlook Express, and Entourage, before eventually finally blessing something called simply "Outlook."

From my fuzzy memory, I think Exchange support may have even first come via a third party using a MS license, but don't quote me on that. Somebody did have to license it for their app; it might have even been Apple.

The other Office apps, like Word and Excel, also kept their distance until Word 6, which was a port of the Windows version (to much consternation; Word 5.1a is still considered by many to be the pinnacle of the app).

Excel was a different story, because it originated as a Mac app.

POP effectively had the nails put in its coffin once users started to have more than a single device and wanted their email to be synced between all of them.