Multitasking between email and the web has become the new standard for work, but unless your users are app windowing experts, switching back and forth between both can be a frustrating experience. To improve the user experience, Outlook and Microsoft Edge have a new feature that lets users see their email and the links they open at the same time, in the same place鈥攏o more switching back and forth between apps.

With this feature, when a user selects a web link from the Outlook for Windows app, that link opens alongside their email in Microsoft Edge so they can easily access, read, and respond to their email using their matching authenticated profile. No more disruptive switching鈥攋ust their email in the Microsoft Edge sidebar pane, right next to the online content from the link in a single, side-by-side view.

This feature requires Outlook Build 16.0.16227.20280 or later.

For more information, see: Discover new ways to multitask with Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Edge.

Note

A similar experience will roll out for Microsoft Teams in the future. Configuring the feature by using a policy will also apply to the Teams experience when it arrives.

To manage this change in your organization, you need to configure the following policy:

Name: Choose Which Browser Opens Web Links

Description: This policy controls which browser will open web links from within supported Microsoft 365 apps. By default, web links will open in Microsoft Edge.

Note: This policy doesn't override any user settings or policies that specify that document links should open in the desktop apps instead of their web app counterparts.

If you enable this policy, you can choose either "System default browser" or a specific browser, such as "Microsoft Edge." "System default browser" refers to the browser setting specified on the user's Windows device.

If you disable or don't configure this policy, web links will open in Microsoft Edge. The user can set their preferred browser from the settings for the specific Microsoft 365 app.

If you want Outlook to open web links using the system default browser, you need to enable this policy and select System default browser.

You have two options where you can manage this policy:

Follow these steps to manage the policy in the Cloud Policy service for Microsoft 365:

Navigate to the Microsoft 365 Apps admin center, and then select Sign in.

Under Office policies, select Go to Microsoft 365 Cloud Policy.

Under Policy configurations, select Create.

Provide a name and description for your policy, and then select Next.

Select the appropriate scope, such as creating a group or adding to an existing group.

Select Next.

Under Configure Settings, search for "Choose which browser opens web links".

Select the Choose which browser opens web links policy.

Adjust Configuration setting to the desired configuration, and then select Apply.

Select Next.

Review your policy, then select Create.

Select Done.

Download the latest Administrative Templates for Microsoft 365 (ADMX files).

Open them in the Group Policy Management Editor.

Locate the policy: Policies > Administrative Templates: Policy definitions (ADMX files) > Microsoft Office 2016 > Links > Choose which browser opens web links.

Configure the policy.

Select Apply.

Note

If your organization uses a Microsoft 365 for business plan, then you can use the policy to manage the feature when it rolls out for Teams. However, the policy is unavailable for Outlook with this plan. Users will need to manage the feature by using Outlook settings as described in the following section.

If you prefer to let your users manage this feature, then either leave the policy unconfigured or disable the policy. Microsoft Edge will open as the new default experience when users open web links, and they can manage this behavior in one of two ways:

Through Outlook settings: File > Options > Advanced > Link Handling.

Through the banner notification: A banner notification is shown when users first see the experience. They can either select the Try Edge option to keep using the feature or select Manage my settings to revert to their system's default browser experience.

The choices that a user makes for Outlook settings will also apply to Teams when this feature rolls out for Teams.

Note: If you confirm this experience by enabling the policy and selecting Microsoft Edge, users will still receive this banner, but the Manage my settings option will be grayed out and unavailable to use.

For more information about how users can individually control this experience, see Outlook emails open next to web links in Microsoft Edge.