Use Outlook Mail and Outlook Calendar

Outlook Mail searches and reads your mail, writes drafts and sends messages you approve. Outlook Calendar reads the calendars you choose, checks availability for work or school accounts and changes events you approve. Both sign in with your own Microsoft account: a work or school account in your organization's Microsoft 365, or a personal account such as outlook.com or hotmail.com. Like every app you install, they belong to you: only your own private agents can use them, only for what you grant, and nobody else in the workspace can see what they read or produce.

They follow the same steps as the other apps; see use apps for how enabling, installing and granting work. Until the platform administrator sets up Microsoft sign-in on this server, both apps show Needs setup and can't be installed.

Install

1. A workspace owner or admin enables the app in Settings → Apps. A personal workspace has every app available.
2. Open Apps and choose Install next to Outlook Mail or Outlook Calendar.
3. Choose what to ask Microsoft for, check I Authorize These Permissions, and choose Install with the app's name.
4. Microsoft asks you to sign in and approve, then sends you back to the app's page, which says Signed in to Microsoft.

Outlook Mail and Outlook Calendar share one Microsoft account, so installing the second asks Microsoft only for what it adds. The app's page shows each permission as granted, waiting for Microsoft, or not asked for. Change Permissions asks Microsoft for permissions you add. The ones the app already has stay until you uninstall it, so to remove one, uninstall the app and install it again with the permissions you want.

Personal Microsoft accounts can read and change selected events when you grant those permissions, but cannot use Read Availability or Get free busy. Reconnecting or granting more permissions does not add availability support. Guest Machines does not read event details as a fallback for an availability-only grant.

Installing gives no agent access on its own. See give an agent access.

Which accounts the workspace accepts

A workspace accepts work and school accounts only until an owner or admin changes it; a personal workspace accepts personal accounts too. An admin can also accept work accounts only from some organizations. If you sign in with an account the workspace doesn't accept, the sign-in is refused and nothing is installed: sign in with another account, or ask an owner or admin.

If your organization must approve Guest Machines

Many Microsoft 365 organizations don't let their members approve an app's mail and calendar permissions themselves. The app then shows Needs admin approval, and its page says which organization must approve it and shows an approval link. Choose Copy approval link and send it to your organization's Microsoft 365 administrator. Once they approve, choose Sign In Again to finish installing.

If you are an owner or admin of this workspace and also administer that organization at Microsoft, choose Approve for Organization next to the app in Settings → Apps instead; see for workspace admins.

When the app needs something

• Needs permission: Microsoft hasn't granted every permission you asked for. Choose Ask Microsoft Again. Agents can use only what Microsoft granted.
• Unsupported permissions: the connected account cannot provide any of the permissions selected for this install. For availability, use a Microsoft work or school account. Choose event permissions only if you intend to grant event access; signing in again does not add personal-account availability.
• Reconnect required: Microsoft stopped accepting your sign-in, for example after a password change, a long time unused, or an organization policy. Choose Sign In Again, then resume paused runs from their run page.
• Signed out: the account was disconnected. Choose Sign In Again; agents keep their saved permissions.
• Paused by workspace: an owner or admin disabled the app. Everything is kept and works again when they enable it.

Choose calendars

Outlook Calendar works only on the calendars you choose. On its page, under Calendars, choose Choose Calendars. Microsoft lists your calendars and the ones other people shared with you, each with its owner, whether it's your default calendar, and whether your account Can edit it or it's Read only. Check the ones agents may use and choose the Add button. You can select up to 50.

Remove next to a calendar takes it away from every agent granted it, and triggers watching it stop. Outlook Mail has nothing to select: its tools act on your mailbox.

Give an agent access

You grant Outlook Mail and Outlook Calendar per agent, and only to private agents you are the only owner of. On the app's page, under Agents, choose the agent. The same controls are on the agent's Tools page under Apps, where you choose the app first.

1. Check the tools the agent may use. They are grouped as Reads, Changes, and Messages, posts and invitations. Each tool on the app's page says whether it Asks a person every time or You choose, and whether it runs Only in work you start. A tool that needs a permission your account doesn't have yet can't be checked; add the permission on the app's page.

2. For a read, check Approve Each Use to have it ask you each time. Saving drafts, sending and changing events always ask.

3. For Outlook Mail's draft and send tools, check Allow Run Files as Outlook Mail Attachments to let the agent attach files from its own run. It's off until you check it, for grants made before it existed too. Saving an attachment in a draft already uploads it to Microsoft.

4. For Outlook Calendar, check what the agent may do with each selected calendar:

   • Events: read its events, and with the tools that change events, change them.
   • Availability: only its owner's busy times; requires a Microsoft work or school account.

   A calendar that is read only for your account can't be granted for events beside the tools that change them. With a work or school account, you may grant it for availability. Otherwise, leave out the tools that change events to read its events.

5. Check Allow Unattended Use to let the tools that allow it run in work nobody is watching: schedules, triggers, webhooks and API tasks. Outlook triggers need it. Drafts, sends and event changes still ask a person, so they wait for you.

6. Choose Grant with the app's name, or Save Access to change a grant. Remove with the app's name takes it off the agent.

Your mail and calendars only reach work you started yourself, such as your own chats, or your own private automations and triggers. A run someone else starts never gets them, even with an agent you share.

Approve messages and event changes

Unless the run is set to No Approvals, before an agent saves a draft, sends a message, creates, changes or deletes an event, or answers an invitation, the run pauses as Awaiting Approval. The request shows the exact action:

• Mail: the account, every To, Cc and Bcc address, the subject, the plain-text body, the message it replies to and each attached file's name, type, size and checksum. A send also has a deadline within 15 minutes, after which it isn't sent.
• Calendar: the calendar, the event as it is now, exactly what will change, who Outlook notifies, and a deadline within 15 minutes. A change to an event's attendees replaces its whole list: the request names everyone it leaves out, who Outlook sends a cancellation, and rooms stay rooms. Agents see at most 20 attendees, so an event with more can't have its attendees changed from Guest Machines; change them in Outlook.

Only you can approve actions on your own Microsoft account, while signed in to Guest Machines in your browser. A workspace admin answering for you can deny one but not approve it. An approval covers exactly what you reviewed; if the agent changes the message or the event, it asks again.

Right before a draft or an event is changed, Guest Machines reads it again, and a change made in Outlook since your review stops the action. Outlook has no way to guarantee this, though: a change made in Outlook at the same moment can still be overwritten or sent. The approval says so.

Messages are plain text. Agents can save attachments they read to their own run files. With Allow Run Files as Outlook Mail Attachments, they can attach up to 10 of their run's own files, private to you, to drafts and messages: 3 MB each and 20 MB in all, or 3 MB in all with sending alone. Without it, a draft or message with attached files is refused before you're asked, nothing reaches Microsoft, and a run set to No Approvals waits until you allow it. An agent its parent agent started can attach files only when the parent's grant allows it too. A draft written in HTML, or with files you attached in Outlook, can't be changed or sent from Guest Machines. Outlook writes a reply's draft itself; if it comes out different from the message you approved, for example with the original sender added or as HTML quoting the conversation, it stays in Drafts unsent and the run asks you how to continue.

If Guest Machines can't confirm that a message was sent, the run asks you how to continue. With the drafts permission, it can look the message up in your Sent Items for you; with sending alone, check Sent Items in Outlook yourself. A create that can't be confirmed can be looked up on its calendar the same way. Guest Machines never sends or creates again on its own. If Microsoft limits requests to your mailbox, runs wait for the delay Microsoft asks for.

Start an agent from new mail or calendar changes

Open Triggers → App Triggers. Under Your Outlook Mail triggers choose New Outlook Mail Trigger, or under Your Outlook Calendar triggers choose New Outlook Calendar Trigger. You need the app installed, an agent of your own without computer control, and the app granted to that agent with Allow Unattended Use:

• Outlook Mail: the agent needs Get message. A trigger runs it when a new message arrives in the Folders you choose (Inbox by default; also Archive, Junk Email, Deleted Items or other folder IDs, up to 10), optionally Only from these senders: up to 20 addresses or domains. Drafts, mail from your account's own addresses (the one you sign in with and its email address) and mail your agents' runs send never start it, so the agent's own replies can't start it again. From addresses can be forged, so a sender filter only decides which mail is relevant.
• Outlook Calendar: the agent needs Get event with the watched calendar granted for Events. A trigger watches one calendar you selected and runs for the Changes you choose: New events, Changed events and Cancelled events. Repeated edits to an event that is still waiting are combined, and changes the trigger's own runs make don't start it again.

Name the trigger, write the task and choose Create Trigger, then Review and Turn On to check the task, the agent and what its runs can use, and Turn On Trigger. Editing a trigger turns it off until you review it again; the calendar it watches can't change. Messages or changes already waiting stay queued when the edit only widens what it watches. An edit that narrows it, such as removing a folder, narrowing the senders or removing a kind of change, skips every one already waiting, even one the new settings would still match, because your next approval covers only what matches them. The edit form shows how many will be skipped before you save, and View History on the card lists what became of each one.

Each new message or change starts one run of your agent, one at a time. The run is told which message or event it is about, and the agent reads it with its own grant. Its content is information for the task, never instructions. Sending mail and changing events still need your approval each time, so a run may wait for you.

The trigger's card shows how it is watching: Watching for new mail or Watching for changes while Microsoft tells Guest Machines as things happen, Checking every 5 minutes when Microsoft's notifications aren't arriving, and Can't check Outlook when checks are failing. If one of a mail trigger's folders no longer exists in Outlook, only the triggers watching it show Can't check Outlook with the reason, and every folder that still exists keeps being read; edit the trigger to remove the folder. It also shows how many messages or changes are waiting to start and the last run.

Recover what a trigger missed

If Microsoft can no longer list what changed, the trigger pauses and its card explains why. Review it and turn it back on, then choose Recover Missed Mail or Recover Missed Changes to run for what arrived meanwhile, going back no more than six days. A mail recovery matches messages by the trigger's folders and senders. Microsoft can't list deleted events, so a calendar recovery can't find events deleted while changes were missed. See recover what a trigger missed for how a recovery runs.

Uninstall

Uninstall with the app's name takes it away from all your agents and stops its triggers; Outlook Calendar also forgets the calendars you selected. When it's the last Microsoft app on your account, Guest Machines deletes the account's tokens.

Microsoft doesn't let an app withdraw its own permission, so Microsoft keeps listing Guest Machines until you remove it there:

• A work or school account: My Apps.
• A personal account: apps with access to your account.

Uninstalling can't undo a message that was sent or an event that was changed.

For workspace admins

Owners and admins manage both apps in Settings → Apps, like any app: Enable, Disable, Remove and Tool Limits. Each Microsoft app's row also says which accounts it accepts, and has:

• Accounts: check Work or School Accounts, Personal Microsoft Accounts, or both. Under Organizations, choose Any organization, or Only these to accept work accounts only from the organizations you check. An organization is offered only once an owner or admin of the workspace has signed in to a Microsoft app with a work account there; you never type one in. Each Microsoft app has its own setting. Choose Save Settings. An install on an account the new settings don't accept stops working from its next call, but isn't removed.
• Approve for Organization: opens Microsoft's page where an administrator of your Microsoft 365 organization approves Guest Machines for every Microsoft app the workspace enabled, so members don't each need approval. Microsoft sends you back to Settings → Apps, which says whether Microsoft recorded the approval. A member's next sign-in is what confirms it. A later version of these apps that asks for new permissions may need approval again.

Admins never get access to a member's Microsoft account, their mail or their calendars.