Outlook web interface on a Mac: weird Option key behaviour

Anonymous
2024-09-16T19:22:17+00:00

Hi all,

I've suffered a new setback in my ongoing battle with Outlook's web interface.

As of the last week or two only, when I have Outlook open in my browser (Chrome on my Mac) and I press the option key, it seems to initiate some sort of keyboard navigation thing where it shows letters under Home, View, etc. that I can press to navigate those menus via the keyboard.

So my question is: How do I get rid of this behaviour?

I use option + delete and fn + option + delete very often while typing to delete word-by-word, and a couple times an hour now I accidentally tap just the option key which suddenly jumps into this navigation thing and stops my keyboard inputs in the message I'm typing until I hit escape to go back to normal.

This amounts to a not insubstantial hit to my email productivity.

Thanks in advance!

Outlook | MacOS | New Outlook for Mac | For education

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  1. Anonymous
    2025-03-04T21:45:06+00:00

    Team of 60+ people using Outlook, this is terrible and needs to be fixed ASAP

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  2. Anonymous
    2025-02-24T15:19:07+00:00

    This was a known issue earlier and was fixed but it seems like this may have regressed. We have activated the bug internally and are following up with bug owners to see what can be done about it. I'll post an update here, when I have one. Thanks everyone for your patience while we look into it.

    There has definitely been a regression. Outlook web version is almost unusable on Mac if you are accustomed to using option+ and command+ cursor shortcuts.

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  3. Anonymous
    2025-02-13T16:45:19+00:00

    This was a known issue earlier and was fixed but it seems like this may have regressed. We have activated the bug internally and are following up with bug owners to see what can be done about it. I'll post an update here, when I have one. Thanks everyone for your patience while we look into it.

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-10-21T14:48:03+00:00

    Try opening the message in a new window and it seems to work fine.. It is a workaround at best especially since there is no keyboard shortcut to open the reply in a new window.

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  5. Anonymous
    2024-10-03T16:19:44+00:00

    Has anybody had any luck figuring out how to resolve this issue? I too am beyond frustrated these past few weeks with this having started to happen. Here's a screenshot (for posterity) of what happens when trying to use the option key:

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