Outlook 2007: Set AutoPreview to Preview Unread Items for Better Visibility

Contributor Icon Contributed by Rob Rogers  
Tag Icon Tagged: Microsoft Outlook  

By default, Outlooks AutoPreview is set to No Preview. This will give the Inbox the stereotypical look where the sender, subject, and date are shown. I much prefer setting AutoPreview to the Preview Unread Items setting. I like that I can easily scan my Inbox and get a better feel if an email needs my immediate attention. A side effect of using this setting is that your unread items will standout from the rest and will be easier to focus on (which is why I don’t set AutoPreview to Preview all items, then they would all look the same once again).


1. Go to your Inbox and right-click on an empty spot in the Messages area. This will bring up the context menu. Select Customize Current View.

2. Click the Other Settings button.

3. In the AutoPreview section, select the Preview unread items radio button.

4. Click OK.

5. Click OK again to close the Customize View box.

Now your Inbox will look something like this:

 

2 Comments -


  1. AG said on May 26, 2009

    Hi, thanks for the information, found it to be very useful. Do you know if there is away to apply this setting as default? Or to multiple folders at once? I much prefer the “Preview Unread Items” view but whenever I create a new subfolder within my inbox, I have to go through the process of adjusting the view over and over again.

    Thanks in advance.

  2. Bmac2003 said on August 4, 2011

    Interesting problem with Auto Preview:Sometimes the text in the auto preview is not in the content of the email. That is I read “so and so blah, blah, blah” in the auto preview but the open note says “yada, yada, yada” and does not contain the previewed text anywhere.
    Anyone else have this problem? Anyone solve it?

 

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