Email and calendar
Salesforce Outlook integration not syncing: find the cause
Why your Salesforce Outlook integration is not syncing in 2026: which Outlook tool you run, the changes that broke it, and a short triage for your team.
A rep mentions that meetings stopped showing up in Salesforce last week, or that emails no longer log from Outlook, and nobody on your side changed a thing. When the Salesforce Outlook integration is not syncing this year, the cause is often a change made by Salesforce or Microsoft rather than by you. Start by finding out which of Salesforce’s Outlook tools your team runs, because each one breaks for different reasons. Then check the 2026 changes that apply to it: Salesforce for Outlook now retires on January 30, 2027, and older Einstein Activity Capture connections had to move to Microsoft Graph by October 1, 2026.
Which Salesforce Outlook tool is your team running
Salesforce has shipped four main Outlook tools over the years, and it is common to run two at once, often the Outlook integration for the pane inside Outlook and Einstein Activity Capture for automatic sync. Ask whoever set it up, or search Setup for “Outlook” and “Activity Capture” to see what is switched on.
| Tool | How to recognize it | What changed in 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Salesforce for Outlook | A program installed on each Windows PC, with an icon in the system tray | Now retires January 30, 2027; after that it cannot connect or sync |
| Outlook integration | A Salesforce pane inside Outlook, added from Microsoft AppSource or pushed out by IT | No retirement announced; it depends on Outlook builds and browser privacy settings |
| Einstein Activity Capture | Set up by an admin in Salesforce; emails and events appear on records without anyone clicking | Microsoft 365 connections made before Spring ‘26 were due to move to Microsoft Graph by October 1, 2026 |
| Lightning Sync | An older server side sync set up by an admin, available to customers who subscribed before Winter ‘21 | Salesforce says setups using Office 365 with Exchange Web Services stop syncing once EWS retires in October 2026 |
Write the answer at the top of any support ticket, so nobody spends an afternoon on a fix written for a tool your company does not use.
Salesforce for Outlook now retires on January 30, 2027
Salesforce updated its retirement article on October 1, 2026. The desktop program is “rescheduled to retire on January 30, 2027”, almost a year earlier than the December 2027 date Salesforce had announced before, and vendor guides written before October still show the old date. Salesforce gives the reason as mandatory authentication controls the program’s architecture cannot support.
After that date the desktop client cannot connect, so contact, event and task sync stops. The side panel, the system tray controls, the Add Emails button and access to Outlook configurations in Setup go with it. Data that already synced stays in both Salesforce and Outlook.
If the program has stopped on one PC only, Salesforce’s getting started guide sets requirements worth checking: an old version (3.0.0 or later is required), Internet Explorer 11 missing or without TLS 1.1 or later, and unsupported setups such as IMAP or POP3 mail servers. Fixing it buys you three months at most, so the better use of the time is the move.
The replacement is the Outlook integration for the pane plus Einstein Activity Capture for contact and event sync. Custom field mappings and sync filters do not transfer and must be rebuilt. Salesforce’s feature comparison also shows three gaps: tasks do not sync, custom fields do not sync, and deleting a contact in one system no longer removes it from the other. Reps who live in Outlook tasks will feel the first one. We would settle with them before January where tasks will live, rather than find the gap in February.
Einstein Activity Capture after the move to Microsoft Graph
Salesforce told orgs that set up Activity Capture with Microsoft 365 before Spring ‘26 to upgrade to Microsoft Graph by October 1, 2026 “to avoid service disruption”. Exchange Web Services, or EWS, is the older way Salesforce talked to Exchange Online. Microsoft has been switching it off tenant by tenant this fall and plans to retire it for good on April 1, 2027.
How the upgrade reaches people depends on the connection type. For a connection your admin set up for the whole org, the admin starts the Graph upgrade. For connections each user made with their own account, users see a banner asking them to reconnect their Microsoft account, and Salesforce says sync continues through EWS until they do. A rep who dismissed that banner is the first person to check when capture stops for one person. If your org also uses Salesforce Inbox on EWS, upgrading either one upgrades both.
Two other causes are worth ruling out. Salesforce’s support comparison says Activity Capture sync is not available when users are split between Exchange Online and on premises Exchange, so in a hybrid setup, expect capture to work but sync not to. And Activity Capture does not sync tasks at all, so a missing task is expected behavior, not a fault.
When the Salesforce pane in Outlook will not load or log email
The Outlook integration runs inside Outlook as an add-in, so most of its problems are on the Microsoft side of the screen. Salesforce’s system requirements list minimum builds, such as Microsoft 365 Office on Windows version 2409 or later and Office on Mac 16.89 or later, with Exchange Online or Exchange 2013, 2016 or 2019 on premises.
In Outlook on the web, browser privacy settings are the quiet cause. Salesforce asks for cookies from Salesforce to be allowed, Edge tracking prevention set to Basic or given exceptions for Salesforce and Outlook domains, and Safari’s “Prevent cross-site tracking” turned off. Mobile browsers are not supported. When the pane works for one colleague and not another, compare their Outlook build and browser settings side by side before anyone reinstalls anything.
Settle three questions before anyone opens a ticket
First, is it one rep or everyone? One person points to their own connection, banner, Outlook build or browser. Everyone at once points to an org connection, a change in your Microsoft 365 tenant, or a retirement.
Second, has Microsoft switched off Exchange Web Services for your tenant yet? Your Microsoft 365 administrator can check the message center notices, and the answer tells you whether the EWS deadlines above already apply to you.
Third, when was the guide you are following written? Anything that still gives December 2027 for Salesforce for Outlook predates the October change. Like the end of support for Workflow Rules, these dates arrive whether or not anyone is watching. If Outlook turns out to be one of several connections that disagree about the same records, our article on HubSpot Salesforce integration problems shows how to decide which system owns each field.
Before the end of this week, write down which Outlook tool each team uses. If any desktop still runs Salesforce for Outlook, book the move for a date well before January 30.