The new Outlook app has not yet gained enough features to be as capable as the traditional desktop app, but it looks like Microsoft is trying to change that. The company added support for third-party accounts, including Gmail, to the new web-based Outlook app a couple of months ago, but its efforts to make the email client more feature-rich keep on continuing with the upcoming inking capability.

Microsoft is working on inking support for the new Outlook app on Windows 11 and Outlook web client to allow you to add handwritten notes, sketches, annotations, and signatures to emails with your fingers, a digital pen, or a mouse. While users with touch-enabled devices like Surface will benefit the most from the inking capability by using the best pens for those devices, those with non-touch PCs will be able to use it using a mouse or touchpad.

The inking feature is already available on the Outlook desktop client and Windows 10's Mail app on touch PCs. With the new Outlook, you will be able to edit your drawing the same way as on the Outlook desktop client, as confirmed by Microsoft while describing the feature (with ID number 151810) on Microsoft 365 Roadmap page.

The new Outlook app has been in testing for quite a while, and it's confirmed to replace the inbox Mail and Calendar apps on Windows 11 next year. And now that the new Outlook is readying to become the inbox email app, it makes perfect sense for Microsoft to lend the new Outlook app all the useful features available in Outlook desktop. Hopefully, we'll get a fully functional new Outlook experience after the testing phase. If you're using Outlook desktop on your PC, you can use the new Outlook by enabling Try the new Outlook toggle in the upper right corner.

Microsoft has plans to release the inking feature for the new Outlook app and Outlook for the web this September. However, the release date could be delayed to a later date if needs be. In short, September is just a tentative release month.