Reduce size of message preview pane header in Outlook 2016
Reduce size of message preview pane header in Outlook 2016
I shrink it back down to the size it was in Office 2010.
remove the "Reply, Reply All, Forward, IM" buttons at the top of the header?
Reduce the size of the font for the "From" field? (And hopefully the size of the spacing around it.)
Change the font color to black? The greyish faded color in 2016 is hard read.
It's just taking away useful space for the preview and replacing it with visual clutter.
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26 comments
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Anonymous
commented
I also would like to see the above changes implimented. The email header in the preview pane is too tall with reduntant buttons.
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Anonymous
commented
What is MS thinking? The Header info is HUGE. Do they listen to their customers?
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hiroshi kameya
commented
MS does not understand the wishes of users. Users feel that the height of the message header is too large.
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Dave Knight
commented
Fully agree with this. The new header in the reading pane is *massive*. So much white space and wasted room everywhere. Even on a 20" monitor I can see far less of the e-mail and cannot imagine why anyone thought that this would improve productivity. On my older laptop (1366x768 res screen), Outlook is almost unusable these days.
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Aaron Partington
commented
MS has rendered the reading pane totally useless with the mandatory inclusion of fixed HUGE font display of information that is totally redundant to what is already displayed in the main email list view.
Recommendations:
- add the capability to hide the subject, sender, recipient, reply, reply all, forward, ellipses (...) box and timestamp information - again - it is all totally redundant and takes up WAAAAAAY too much space.- At the very least:
* Make the reading pane font size match the email list view font size
* Get rid of all the whitespace
* Shrink the reply, reply all and forward butt on icons to 1/4 their current size and put the text for each into tool-tip text- MOST importantly - ensure that your UX/UI architects' opinions about layout, esthetics and whatever feng shui considerations they are incorporating into their decision making process are subordinate to Product Owner stakeholders who ACTUALLY use email in their daily functions. No one benefits from the current fixed, wasteful reading pane layout.
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Vivek
commented
Half of my reading pane has non value add information which is big drawback. They need to think about having a collapsible pane as they had in the classic outlook version
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Anonymous
commented
unbelievable decision to use so much space for the mail headers in the reading pane that you can't read beyond 'Hi there' if you want to have a reasonable view of your inbox. It's the pointless huge circle with sender's initials that particularly riles me. To repeat what other have said - what do you think the reading pane is for?!!!
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Steve
commented
I feel like this is meant to drive users to use the right side reading pane over the bottom. I do not like the right side reading pane.
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Megan Hart
commented
I agree that there is a ridiculous amount of wasted space but what baffles me is that there is no way to format other than the "tighter spacing." At the moment, there no way to see full subject lines in the reading plane. Why? What is the point of cutting off the subject line and force you to scroll to see it all. Completely unusable with this update.
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John Miller
commented
They made the buttons even bigger now and got rid of the hide feature in 365
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Daniel Greiner
commented
Please do something about this waste of space and repeating of information. I do not mind using my large screen but on the laptop it's bad.
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Wi- Fi
commented
I've posted something similar to this at the link below. Screenshot there.
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Anonymous
commented
One tip I figured out - My folder pane navigation (at the bottom where it says mail, calendar, contacts etc.) stretched all the way across the bottom of the screen cutting off part of the preview pane. If you go to View/ Layout/Folder Pane/Options and click on the box that says "compact navigation" it shrinks that navigation so it doesn't extend all the way across. That uncovers a substantial amount of preview pane at the bottom.
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Alan
commented
I'm surprised employees at Microsoft don't hate on the 365 reading pane bottom. I just upgraded to 365 today and am flabbergasted at how much wasted space there is in that view. Reading pane Right is better for spacing but not my favorite as I like to customize my columns in reading pane right and can find emails quickly after clicking a column header and use an alpha search on my keyboard. Specifically buttons are too big in the ribbon - give option to remove text and have smaller icons, and the big white space in the middle between the columns at top and the bottom viewing pane is bulky. It makes me scroll more when reading emails in the bottom pane.
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Anonymous
commented
Yes I agree. Outlook is wasting so much space that you hardly can see anything from the email text in the peview. All I need in one (max 2) sall single header line is: sender (From: email adress) - receiver (To: cut after defined lenght if multiple adresses) - email Header Text (cut after definmed lenght if too long) and that is it. The most important of all is enough space for the preview of the email itself (Text) an not like now (wasted blank space and irrelevant repeaded buttons) Overall the general design of Outlook is wasting too much space for menues, buttons and headers and blank space instead of focusing on relevant information.
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Andrew Root
commented
With "bottom view" for the reading pane there is too much wasted space, especially if there is an attachment. The point of the preview pane is to be able to read the message, with all the wasted space this cannot be done.
The previous version of O365 allowed you to click on a paperclip and the attachment would not be displayed, this option has gone now so there is no longer any space to preview the body of the actual message, which is the whole point of the preview! -
Anonymous
commented
The icons in ProPlus are a huge distraction. Please remove them or at the very least change to text links.
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George Karam
commented
I agree. What's worst, instead of improving, the made the late 2019 version even worst. Messages are unreadeable in small screen laptops. Together with the ribbon, header can take almost 50% of screen real estate.
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Anonymous
commented
I agree... the content of the email is not visible, which is more important then the header info!
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Tebe Anttila
commented
With "bottom view" for the reading pane, the amount of wasted space is insane. Search current mailbox -tool can be one line down and in the middle. Message header in the middle of screen with subject and all recipients is insanily huge, it can be 50% smaller.
