Message Preview missing from search results
When I type any text into the search box of my inbox, all Message Preview text disappears. Turning on Message Preview in the ribbon or changing the number of preview lines does nothing.
I normally work with the preview pane turned off so I normally rely on Message Preview to help determine which is the correct message to open. With no Message Preview when searching, now I have to open each possible message. Slow!
Please bring back the ability to show Message Preview in Search Results, at least if the Preview Pane is off!

7 comments
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Anonymous commented
This was a feature that must have just gone away again as I have been using it daily for years. I am very disappointed. Using Outlook for Mac.
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Butler-Gary, Annette commented
I absolutely agree. I frequently use the Advanced Search and often need to review as many as 50 to 75 emails. I had to open and peruse each email in our organization switched to Outlook. The one feature that I immediately missed was having a Reading Pane option for any Search Function. It can't possible be that difficult. This is not my first comment. STILL HOPING FOR A FIX TO THIS ISSUE!!!.
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Adam commented
within previews of documents or spreadsheets attached to emails - it would be awesome to be able to search within these for keywords
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Anonymous commented
I often need to review my past sent and received e-mails when I am preparing billing statements for clients. I do this using the "Advanced Find" feature in the "Search Tools" feature of the "Search" tab in Outlook.
In prior versions of Outlook that I've used before migrating to Office 365 Outlook 2016, I was able to execute an "Advanced Search" of e-mails using various search parameters (e.g. frequently used words; date ranges for received or sent, etc.) that would yield a list of e-mails that met those parameters.
I would then be able to add a setting in "Other Settings" to show a "Message Preview," similar to the 1, 2 or 3-line message preview you can set in the actual folder being searched.
To do that there was an "On-Off" button that you would set and the preview lines would appear. That function no longer is offered in the "Message Preview" section of "Other Settings." So there is no longer a way to get a message preview of the messages that show up in the search results.
Has that setting been moved elsewhere? Has it not been built in to Outlook 2016 for Office 365?
How about fixing that?
Thanks
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Kathy Nesper commented
I have the same problem--can't see message preview in search results. Since by definition I'm trying to find a particular message among many, not being able to see at least one line of the message itself makes search extremely inconvenient. I hope they fix this!
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Aaron Schultz commented
When viewing a long email thread in the Reading pane, I frequently want to hit Ctrl+F to search for a string within the message.
Frustratingly, this instead creates a Forward email. There doesn't appear to be any way to text search within the Reading pane -- you have to open the message in a new window.
Please add the option to do text searches within the Reading pane and the ability to configure a hotkey for it.
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Anonymous commented
I fully concur