Outlook on the Desktop

Outlook on the Desktop (OotD) is a Windows application that places a live Microsoft Outlook view directly on your desktop. It is designed to keep your calendar and other Outlook content visible all day without needing to keep Outlook in the foreground.

Official Website | Download

History

OotD 1.0 shipped on September 29, 2005. This repo's commit history goes back to April 2007, and the project moved to GitHub in 2012. Twenty years and over a million downloads later, it is still free, open source and actively maintained, with signed releases and automatic updates.

The full release history is on the legacy release notes and current release notes pages.

Screenshots

Requirements

• Windows 10 or newer
• Classic Microsoft Outlook 2010 or newer (the new Outlook for Windows is not supported)

The installer downloads and installs the .NET 11 Desktop Runtime if it isn't already present.

Supported Languages

Outlook on the Desktop currently includes these UI language resources:

• English (en-US)
• German (de)
• Spanish (es)
• French (fr)
• Italian (it)
• Portuguese, Brazil (pt-BR)
• Japanese (ja)
• Korean (ko)
• Chinese, Simplified (zh-CN)

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Development

Build Requirements

• .NET 11 SDK (the version is pinned in global.json)
• Visual Studio 2026 or newer recommended

Building and testing

NetSparkle and MACTrackBarLib are git submodules, so clone recursively:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/mscrivo/OotD.git
cd OotD
dotnet build OutlookDesktop.slnx
dotnet test --project OotD.Core.Tests/OotD.Core.Tests.csproj

If you've already cloned without submodules, run git submodule update --init.

What the build produces

• OotD.Launcher detects whether Outlook is x86 or x64 and starts the matching executable.
• OotD.Core contains the main Windows Forms application.
• The installer is built from Setup Script.iss during CI.

Project Layout

Path	Purpose
OotD.Core/	Main application code, Windows Forms UI, preferences, controls, and Outlook integration
OotD.Core.Tests/	Unit and integration-style tests for the core app
OotD.Launcher/	Startup launcher that selects the correct executable for Outlook bitness
OotD.x86/	Thin 32-bit host executable that runs OotD.Core, for 32-bit Outlook
OotD.x64/	Thin 64-bit host executable that runs OotD.Core, for 64-bit Outlook
NetSparkle/	Auto-update dependency source (git submodule)
MACTrackBarLib/	Custom trackbar dependency source (git submodule)

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome. If you are changing runtime behavior, UI flows, or installer packaging, validate all of the following before opening a PR:

• The solution builds cleanly in Release
• Tests pass locally
• The correct x86 and x64 launch behavior still works with Outlook installed
• Installer changes still package successfully

License

This project is released under the MIT License. See LICENSE for details.

Sponsors

Free code signing on Windows provided by SignPath.io, certificate by SignPath Foundation