Quick Methods to Disable Preview Pane in Outlook

Read time: 6 minutes

By default, both Windows 10 Mail app and Outlook have a preview pane feature, also known as the reading pane. When you choose an email, it automatically opens on the right. This feature also displays the first line of each email together with the subject line.

Sometimes, this feature can be frustrating, like working in a public place or for other reasons; you don’t want others to see your email’s content. But don’t worry, you can turn off the preview pane to hide messages, which we will discuss below.

Here, in this blog, we will know how to disable the preview pane or reading pane in the Windows 10 Mail app and different versions of Outlook. Later, we will also discuss a professional tool to repair Outlook 2019, 2016, and 2010 PST manually.

How to Disable Preview Pane

MS Outlook and Windows 10 Mail apps have a preview Pane or Reading Pane feature by default. To disable it, you can use the below methods. Let’s discuss each process step-by-step:

To disable the reading pane from Outlook, follow the below steps. But ensure these steps will disable the reading pane only in the selected folder.

1. Open ‘Outlook’ and select the ‘View’ tab.
2. In the ‘Layout’ section, select ‘Reading Pane.’
3. Click on ‘Off,’ and the reading pane turns off for the selected folder.

1. Open ‘Outlook’ and select the ‘View’ tab.
2. Now, select ‘Change View’ and click on ‘Apply Current View to Other Mail Folders.’
3. Reading Pane is now disabled in all other mail folders also.

To hide the preview text in Outlook that appears under the message subject, follow the below steps:

1. Open ‘Outlook’ and select the ‘View’ tab.
2. Click on ‘Current view,’ then select ‘Message Preview’ and click on ‘Off.’

To disable the reading pane in Outlook by default, you can create an Outlook shortcut folder on your desktop. This method will help you turn off the reading pane for all email accounts in Outlook. Follow the below steps to enable this method:

1. Open ‘File Explorer’ and select the C drive. Then search for ‘Outlook.exe’ in the search bar, and you will get an ‘OUTLOOK.EXE’ folder.
2. Right-click on the ‘OUTLOOK.EXE’ folder and select ‘Open file location.’
3. Copy the file address from the address bar.
4. Right-click on the desktop window and select ‘New’ and then ‘Shortcut.’
5. Now, paste the address in the ‘Type the location of the item’ box that you copied in step 3 from the address bar. Click on ‘Next.’
6. Enter a name for your shortcut folder in the ‘Type a name for this shortcut’ box. Then, click on ‘Finish.’
   
7. Finally, the new Outlook shortcut is visible on your desktop. Double-click to open it. Now, you will find that the reading pane is automatically disabled for all folders.

Through the below steps, you can disable the preview pane in the Windows 10 mail app:

1. Open the Mail and click on the ‘Settings’ icon in the lower-left corner of the Mail window.
2. In the ‘Settings’ menu, select ‘Message List.’
3. Move the toggle switches to ‘Off’ under Preview text and Image preview.

If you have Microsoft 365 subscription, you can disable message preview in Outlook.com through the below steps:

1. Open Outlook.com and click on the ‘Settings’ icon in the upper-right corner.
2. In the ‘Settings’ menu, click on the ‘View all Outlook Settings.’
3. Select the ‘Layout’ tab, then select the ‘hide reading pane’ under the reading pane option.
4. Now, scroll down, and in the ‘Message Preview Text,’ select ‘Hide Preview Text.’

The reading pane or preview pane may seem convenient and can be helpful several times. Through it, you can preview emails without sending read receipts or marking them as read. Even you can customize the fonts used in the reading pane. But be careful if you use the reading pane because you may open dangerous files, attachments, or emails that can harm your computer. It can also lead to crashed Outlook and corrupted PST files.

In such a case, we recommend you go with a professional tool named Kernel for Outlook PST Repair tool to repair corrupt PST files. This tool repairs corrupted PST files and recovers lost data within a few clicks. It can quickly resolve oversized PST file issues and save them to new healthy PST files. Through it, you can easily export PST files to Office 365, web mails, and email servers. Overall, it is the best tool for repairing Outlook PST files.

Conclusion

I hope you find this blog helpful. Undoubtedly, there can be some positive and negative aspects to the preview pane in Windows 10 Mail app and Outlook. If you do not find this feature worthy, you can disable it using the above-discussed methods. At last, we also recommended a professional PST repair tool to repair corrupted PST files and recover inaccessible Outlook data. This tool also recovers deleted Outlook items and supports all Outlook versions.