• by Jess Nelson , February 14, 2017

Microsoft premiered two new email applications on Tuesday, launching Outlook Premium out of beta in the United States and offering a preview of a new Email Insights search tool.   

Microsoft originally announced its paid email subscription service, Outlook Premium, more than a year ago and began testing the email service in 2016. This week the company removed the "preview" disclaimer, releasing the full email application to Outlook.com users in the U.S.

Outlook.com Premium grants customers a personalized domain email address, shareable with up to five people, and an inbox free of banner ads. Additional product features include calendar, contact and document sharing as well as the security and privacy features of Outlook.com. The service will eventually cost $49.95 a year, but currently costs $19.95 until the end of March.

Microsoft also previewed Email Insights, an email-based search companion for both Outlook and Gmail. Email Insights can search the inboxes of Outlook desktop applications and Gmail accounts, providing results in the Email Insights application window.

“Think of someone yanking the search button from the top of Outlook and moving it to a separate spot on your taskbar,” says Suresh Parthasarathy, a senior research developer on Microsoft Research India’s Applied Sciences team, in a blog post announcing Email Insights.

The tool is intended to help email users find what they need in their inbox more rapidly in order be more productive during their workday. The email search client is fitted with autocomplete and spell check, and can understand the name of the contact the user is looking for even if their name has been misspelled. Search results can be displayed in order of time or relevance, and multiple searches can be conducted at the same time by opening tabs. 

The Email Insights tool was built in Microsoft Garage, a hub for Microsoft employees to work on different projects, and originally started as a hackathon project. Email Insights is available for download online.