Why is the "play my emails" feature in outlook being retired in June 2024? I use it for 2 hours everyday, and it makes me much more efficient.

Agreed, the “Play My Emails” feature was incredibly useful in staying productive when away from my desk. Surely, Microsoft can turn it back on until a replacement is available. If not, I will be moving over to iOS mail as at least Siri can read email and allow you to reply. Bad move Microsoft!

Does that mean we will have voice command access on our mobile devices?

We need a tool to read emails in the Outlook MOBILE app, not on desktop computers. I have used the read. My email features every day for over a year. And it it was invaluable to me to keep up and stay organized, even when I had to listen in the car. Please create a mobile tool!! If I'm sitting at a computer, obviously I just READ emails and the out-loud function is not useful.

Just to amplify some of the comments made, while I am not sure whether this feature started with the right “use case”, it should be very apparent that the real benefit of this service was in being able to automate the reading of emails. I found it just as game changing as I am sure others have already stated, and I think that MSFT can look to leverage this feature in a major way given its so desperately needed ….if in some way that feature of having emails read aloud (with a friendly voice and basic pause, rewind, fwd features) is available in the Microsoft ecosystem ….I am sure that MILLIONS would love to know!

#theresamarketforthis

An very interested user

Play my emails was a serious lifesaver for me and I am also upset about the removal of the feature. I don't use the dictation feature on my competer, but I guess ill try the new AI feature. To supplement the phone use I downloaded an app called speaking email so far I like it! I can also forward emails to people in my contacts and I can make the robot voice speak much faster!

It also skips email signature and can read attachments!