Microsoft has announced some big changes for people who use personal accounts to sign in to their Outlook email accounts. Starting September 16, personal Outlook accounts will no longer support signing in with what the company calls Basic Authentication, which is the old username and password method .

in a blog postMicrosoft says on that date, Outlook users, including people who still get their email through Hotmail.com and Live.com, must now access their accounts in a supported Mail or Calendar app, or use the Outlook.com website. All of these use what the company calls modern authentication methods. Other apps such as the current Outlook apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android, along with Apple Mail and Thunderbird also support Modern Authentication.

In the post, Microsoft says:

While Basic Auth was the standard for quite some time, it also made it easy for bad actors to capture a person’s login information. This increased the risk of the same stolen credentials being reused to gain access to a person’s email or personal data. Email-based cyberattacks have only grown over time, so we require modern authentication for all Outlook customers to help better protect their personal accounts.

The blog also described how modern authentication methods make logging into people’s Outlook e-mail accounts more secure:

With modern authentication methods we implement additional backend process/tokens that users may not notice adding an extra layer of security. Anyone trying to use an app that doesn’t support Modern Authentication will no longer be able to access their Outlook.com, Hotmail, or Live.com email from those apps.

Microsoft will also shut down the lite version of the Outlook web app, which could be accessed through older web browsers, on August 19, 2024. It also reminded users that it plans to end support for the old Windows Mail and Calendar apps by the end of this year.

Additionally, Microsoft will end support for accessing Google Gmail accounts on Outlook.com very soon, by June 30th. Gmail accounts can still be accessed through the Outlook Windows and Mac apps. Finally, mobile Outlook users will no longer be able to use the Activate My Emails and Voice Search voice command features at the end of June.