We all hate annoyances and usually find a way to get over these same annoyances. Now, Microsoft Outlook is the email platform of choice for millions of folks around the world, but that doesn’t mean it is without its shortcomings. By default, Outlook will not mark a message as Read when you click on it and view it in the Reading Pane. Today in this post, we will see how you can mark email messages as Read in Microsoft Outlook instantly or after a few seconds.
You can change the status of an email message or a group of messages to Read or Unread. In addition, you can mark an email as Read automatically. When messages are marked as Read, it is a quick way of cleaning up the messages in your Outlook inbox quickly.
How to mark an email message as Read in Outlook
To set the Read Status in Outlook, follow the methods below.
- Launch Outlook
- Locate the message
- Right-click the message
- Select Marked as Read
- The status for the message is set as Read.
Launch Outlook.
Locate a message in your inbox.
Right-click the message and Select Marked as Read in the context menu.
The message is marked as Read.
There is another method to mark a single message as Read.
Click the message, then go to the Home tab and click the Unread and Read button in the Tags group.
The message will be marked as Read.
If you want to mark more than one message as Read in a folder, press the Crtl-A key on the keyboard, then right-click and select Marked as Read.
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Show emails as Read after a particular time automatically
You can also set the message as Read automatically. To do this procedure, follow the steps below.
Go to the View tab and click the Reading Pane drop-down arrow in the Layout group.
In the drop-down menu, select Options.
A Reading Pane dialog box will pop up.
Inside the dialog box, you can click the checkbox for Marked items as Read when viewed in Reading Pane.
You can also set how long do you want to wait for messages to be marked as Read.
Then OK.
If you click the unread message, it will be marked as Read; five seconds later, it will be marked as Read.
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There is yet another method to mark the message as read automatically.
Click the File tab.
On the Backstage View, click Option.
An Outlook Options dialog box will open; click Advanced on the left pane in the dialog box.
On the Advanced page under the section Outlook Panes, click the Reading pane button.
A Reading Pane dialog box will appear.
Inside the dialog box, you can click the checkbox for Marked items as Read when viewed in Reading Pane.
You can also set how long do you want to wait for messages to be marked as Read.
Then OK.
Then click OK for the Outlook Options dialog box.
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Automatically mark Email as Read in Outlook when clicked
As mentioned, by default, Outlook does not mark messages as Read whenever the user clicks on them. This can be a problem for some users since if the message is deleted; it shows up as an unread message in the Deleted Items folder. However, worry not for there’s a way around it that works as it should have.
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Change Outlook message status to Read immediately
If you want to instantly mark unread email messages as Read in Outlook Reading Pane automatically without opening on Windows PC, change this setting.
The first step is to click on the File tab, then click on Options. The next step is to click on Mail and move on from there.
Now click on the Reading Pane button; you should now see the option, Mark items as read when viewed in the Reading Pane. Check the box and change the Wait section to Zero.
Users need to add 0 (Zero) to the Wait box, so keep this in mind. Note the default number is five, which stands for five seconds of how long before a message is marked as Read. Adding zero ensures messages are marked as Read as soon as they are clicked on.
Click on the OK button as the final step, and give Outlook time to get its bearings together.
We hope this tutorial helps you understand how to mark an email message as Read in Outlook.
If you have yet to use Outlook for Windows, we suggest giving it a spin. The software is filled with features that could confuse many. However, if you want to receive and send emails, the extra features are just icing on the cake.
For those who are in the realm of business, we recommend Microsoft Outlook above all else. The features, or better yet, the program, are very easy to understand and use. For example, if a user does not want to download full messages, it’s possible only to download the header to save space and to preserve bandwidth for folks on slow and or limited broadband.
Overall, Outlook is necessary for anyone who uses email regularly.
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