Ignite 2020: Microsoft Lists is getting an iOS app, offline mode, and more

Rabia Noureen

Microsoft Lists Featured Image

Microsoft is using Ignite 2020 conference to announce some key enhancements coming to the Microsoft Lists app, the company’s newest app for the Microsoft 365 subscription service. If Microsoft Lists was already great for tracking information and organizing work, the software gaint is continuing to make it more useful to help users be productive on the go and stay connected.

The new Microsoft Lists updates that Microsoft announced include a new iOS app, offline mode, @mentions support, and more. First of all, the company has announced that the new Microsoft Lists app for iOS is now available in preview. The app will make it easier for users to quickly access their own lists and shared lists. Users will be able to create new lists, edit list items, and share with their colleagues.

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In addition to the new iOS app, Microsoft Lists is also getting new features too. The new Offline mode brings the ability for users to take Microsoft Lists offline and let them view and edit lists in situations where they may have low-to-no internet access. To do this, the Lists app will keep a local cache of all data to eliminate the need to continually sync data from the Microsoft 365 service. It should reduce the throttling effect, allowing users to instantly sort, filter, group, or scroll in an extensive list.

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Another important new update for Microsoft Lists is the ability to notify people with @mentions in list comments. As demonstrated in the screenshot below, the person who’s mentioned will instantly get a notification and a link to navigate to the specific comment, review it and take an appropriate action.

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Finally, Microsoft has also announced the ability to recover from mistakes with Undo / Redo actions in Microsoft Lists. Microsoft is aware of the fact that as users work across rows and columns within Microsoft Lists, mistakes happen and we need a way to recover information. Users will soon be able to recover/reverse changes in Lists by using the undo/redo buttons. MSLists_Ignite20_003_Undo-Redo.png

The Microsoft 365 Roadmap indicates that all these new features are currently in development, and the company plans to release them in December 2020. However, the Lists app for iOS is available in preview today, and it will go live for all iOS users by the end of this year.