[Feature Request] Automatic Outlook addin sideload/installation on Mac

[DanilKorotenko]

Can I install/side-load Outlook custom add-in for Mac programatically without manually installing?

Why it is possible on Windows and not possible on Mac?

[millerds]

Looks like when it was implemented in the first place (over a year ago) it was done for Win32, but then then they didn't do the work to make it work on Mac. I'm not sure what would be different on Mac (possibly some updates to the Mac Outlook codebase), but it would take some deeper investigation and work to support it on mac.

[DanilKorotenko]

Outlook for Windows, uses the registry for config storing.
The script behavior for windows is storing manifest path under the key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Wef\Developer
And outlook automatically sideloads that addin.

For Mac, the situation is quite different.

It has windows registry emulation through sqlite database, but that emulation does not support that key.
I have try to store the manifest path under that key and Mac Outlook didn't sideload my addin.

Also, Mac Outlook has native config storage - plist file.

But I have no idea under what key I should store the manifest path, to be addin automatically sideloaded.

I found in the documentation, that there is OfficeWebAddinDeveloperExtras flag in that plist.

What exactly things, this flag turns on or off?

[millerds]

The problem is the code that will look up this setting and use it to load the add-in is part of the product and not the tooling. It was added to Win Outlook, but the Mac Outlook is a different code base and needs to be updated separately and it hasn't been. This is something we'll need to add to our backlog.