Outlook on Apple watch not receiving emails when phone is out of range

I'm unsure whether this is a fault or by design. However, google brings up nothing...


I have an apple watch cellular and when away from the house without my phone the watch doesn't pick up new emails.


When watch and phone are within range new emails are then shown. So no issue with sync.


As per Use your Apple Watch without your iPhone nearby - Apple Support (Apple state that their native mail app will work) which it does and I’ve tested. No mention of outlook though.


Is the outlook watch app purely just a notification extension of the phone app? Therefore, it does not contain the accounts & OAUTH token to sync on its own? I have to use outlook for my corporate email.


Any help appreciated...


I’ve contacted Microsoft support via the outlook app and their response was


“Apple watch with cellular data, should stay connected even when you are away from your iPhone. That means your Outlook app should still be working as well.”


However i truly don’t believe this statement. It’s almost like the app is just an extension of the phone and not able to work independently.


I think it should be clearly available online between the tech giants as to whether this works or not. Point 3 here also contradicts Microsoft’s statement.


https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/why-is-my-mail-calendar-information-not-up-to-date-on-the-outlook-app-for-watch-e5e4a842-e2d2-4216-9ab0-e83609fe34d3

Apple Watch Series 8, watchOS 9

Posted on Sep 29, 2022 10:10 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 2, 2022 12:01 AM

I’ve reached out to msft


Support rep1 - “Apple watch with cellular data, should stay connected even when you are away from your iPhone. That means your Outlook app should still be working as well.”


And then went on to provide me length steps to fix. To which I replied and said I didn’t believe this was a fault and requested it escalated.


Escalation support rep said - “Thank you for waiting, Graham! Jennifer here from the Escalations team. :)


I'll be happy to assist you with this!


Upon consulting the engineering team, I can confirm that the Outlook watch app requires a pairing device to function. If you prefer that the app watch app works independently, please feel free to send the feature request via Help & Feedback then tap on Send Feedback. We have a dedicated team collating suggestions like this and submitting a report to the dev team. Hopefully, we will see it changed in one of our releases.“



What I think is basic functionality should be clear from both apple and msft what should and shouldn’t work. Rather than taking people down troubleshooting steps to fix things that don’t work by design.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Oct 2, 2022 12:01 AM in response to MichaelB2019

I’ve reached out to msft


Support rep1 - “Apple watch with cellular data, should stay connected even when you are away from your iPhone. That means your Outlook app should still be working as well.”


And then went on to provide me length steps to fix. To which I replied and said I didn’t believe this was a fault and requested it escalated.


Escalation support rep said - “Thank you for waiting, Graham! Jennifer here from the Escalations team. :)


I'll be happy to assist you with this!


Upon consulting the engineering team, I can confirm that the Outlook watch app requires a pairing device to function. If you prefer that the app watch app works independently, please feel free to send the feature request via Help & Feedback then tap on Send Feedback. We have a dedicated team collating suggestions like this and submitting a report to the dev team. Hopefully, we will see it changed in one of our releases.“



What I think is basic functionality should be clear from both apple and msft what should and shouldn’t work. Rather than taking people down troubleshooting steps to fix things that don’t work by design.

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Outlook on Apple watch not receiving emails when phone is out of range

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