Microsoft Restores Copilot in Outlook After Unexpected Bug

Microsoft Restores Copilot in Outlook After Unexpected Bug

Microsoft has fixed a bug that caused the Copilot buttons to disappear in Outlook for Windows. This absence, although brief, affected Microsoft 365 accounts with Copilot Chat Basic.

Did you think you were done with Copilot in Outlook? It was just a bug, and Microsoft has resolved it. With Copilot appearing in every corner of Microsoft 365, its temporary disappearance from classic Outlook could almost have been seen as a welcome break. Not so: Microsoft has fixed the issue. The bug affected users with a classic Microsoft 365 license who had access to Copilot Chat Basic. These are not necessarily people actively seeking Copilot in their email, but they will nonetheless regain its buttons after restarting the client.

A Grand Return After a (Barely?) Regretted Disappearance

Specifically, the incident occurred after the transition of classic Outlook for Windows to build 20026.20182, or a more recent version. Access to Copilot could then disappear from:

• the ribbon
• the left sidebar
• the application menu

In some cases, the assistant remained visible in the customization options, but as a grayed-out or unusable command.

The issue was resolved on the service side earlier this week. If you need Copilot, restarting Outlook should be enough to make it reappear. If that doesn’t work, Microsoft recommends updating Office from File, Office Account, Update Options, then Update Now.

As a last resort, the Outlook team advises switching to the new Outlook or Outlook Web Access, or even temporarily reverting to the previous version of the email client. But if you weren't really missing Copilot, no one will blame you for waiting for things to sort themselves out.