Keep Outlook Emails as Unread until after you actually read them

For big parts of my day my Outlook Inbox is where I work. I read many of my emails in the Outlook reading pane (the preview of the email while I am still in my Inbox). I also use the fact that unread emails still need some action from me. The problem is that as I step through emails, they get marked as having been read, even though I may not have actually read them.

Here’s a setting that one of my team member (Thank you Anand) pointed out to me that you can quickly change… now Outlook will only mark an email as read if you’ve spent a minimum time on it.

I’ve set mine to 5 seconds. That way if I am on an email for less than 5 seconds it stays unread. Anything longer than 5 seconds and Outlook assumes that I have read the email. You can use any time setting that fits the way you work.

For Outlook 2016/2013/2010:

Click on File > Options
Click on Mail from the left side column
Click on the Reading Pane button on the right
On the Reading Pane dailog box, tick the checkbox for “Mark items as read when viewed in the Reading Pane“
Enter a time in the box beside “Wait XX seconds before making item as read”
Click OK and than OK again

For Outlook 2007/2003:

Click Tools on the menu > Options…
Click the Other tab
Click on the Reading Pane… button
On the Reading Pane dailog box, tick the checkbox for “Mark items as read when viewed in the Reading Pane“
Enter a time in the box beside “Wait XX seconds before making item as read”
Click OK and than OK again

I hope that this little tip makes your life in Outlook a little bit easier.

24 Replies to “Keep Outlook Emails as Unread until after you actually read them”

Chris says:

October 17, 2011 at 2:56 pm

My users are encouraged not to use Preview Pane. Many of today’s virus’ and malware are now smart enought to execute by sensing preview Pane. The risk is just not worth it.
Arif Kanji says:

January 12, 2012 at 9:32 am

thank you
sam says:

October 17, 2012 at 12:28 pm

Thanks. Needed this badly.
Kristin says:

October 26, 2012 at 6:34 pm

Have you found a way to keep an email unread even after opening it, until you choose to close it?

I thought i remembered this feature prior to Outlook 2010 (where you configured to mark it read immediately after opening, or only upon closing) …. through various changes in OS, laptops, and MS versions, my companys outlook goes through waves where it crashes constantly, and all my open emails are set to read at that moment, and I lose visibility (set to read) when outlook restarts. I get 150 email a day, so remembering which were open at the time is daunting ….If i could keep them marked unread until i closed them, it would help.
Liz says:

November 6, 2012 at 7:14 pm

Thank you! Had hard drive replaced & could not figure out how to keep messages from being read as I scrolled through them. A++
Regarding Emails Appearing Unread says:

December 4, 2012 at 11:24 pm

Thanks for the information about how to keep outlook emails as unread until I actually read them.
I discovered a correction to the settings you recommended.

For Outlook 2007/2003:
Click Tools on the menu > Options…
Click the Other tab
Click on the Reading Pane… button
On the Reading Pane dailog box, UNCHECK the checkbox for “Mark item as read when selection changes“
Click OK and than OK again
standss says:

December 19, 2012 at 9:32 pm

@Gay, thanks for the correction suggested above.
inyo says:

January 1, 2013 at 2:48 pm

Thanks for saving me a lot of time.
I like the fact that you separate instructions, based on the version of Outlook being used.
Barry says:

February 8, 2013 at 4:48 pm

I have a similar issue with one of my customers but it’s a little more tricky and I dont even know if this is possible in Outlook 2010.

Jane Doe receives emails into her inbox and would like to mark them as read when she passes over them, she also has access to a shared mailbox which is used by her team, the emails in here she would like to remain unread until someone has taken repsonsibility for the request.

Is it possible to setup different reading rules in Outlook for multiple mailboxes?

Thank you – oh this is OUtlook 2010 and Exchange server 2010.
Carol says:

February 26, 2013 at 1:53 am

THANKS! I got a new computer, and this was driving me crazy. Am SO glad to be able to leave my unread messages showing as unread. Much appreciated!!
Faisal says:

March 27, 2013 at 10:31 am

Thanks for this info, it worked perfectly.
Keep up the good work.
Rakesh says:

April 21, 2014 at 6:06 pm

Thank you so much
Jonathan says:

January 26, 2015 at 6:13 pm

Thanks. Just got a new computer and this was driving me mental! Seems no one else I work with caressing I guess I work differently to others!
robert says:

March 27, 2015 at 4:09 pm

I do not get any of this? An email is either READ or NOT READ and time setting has nothing to do with it. If I read the email in 5 seconds or 10 hours it should not matter. The email should be marked as READ only when I exit the viewing pane. OUTLOOK seems to be illogical about this setting since it insists in marking my Emails as read AFTER 8 MINUTES (GOD KNOWS WHY!) I cannot find a setting to turn this stupid thing OFF! Any tips would be appreciated.
standss says:

March 30, 2015 at 9:47 pm

The setting is actually very useful. For example if you move down a list of emails in your Inbox and just glance at them for a few seconds, you probably don’t want them to be marked as unread. Many users skim through emails and deal with the urgent ones and then come back to the others later.
LBF says:

May 18, 2015 at 11:01 pm

The Outlook 2010 steps work on Outlook 2013 also 🙂

I set the seconds to be 999 which appeared to be the maximum value permitted.
John LeBlanc says:

June 11, 2015 at 3:36 pm

I absolutely agree with Robert. In Thunderbird for example, the status does not change until you manually leave the message. Note that the software can still change the status after a set time period; it just shouldn’t apply it and move automatically to the next message. The Microsoft engineers didn’t think this through. Perhaps we can encourage a more sensible approach with the Office 2016 beta versions.
That Other Guy says:

December 3, 2015 at 7:01 pm

Or…. They can try to format and group it similar to Gmail with unread at the top until you read them with whatever rule you set up as qualifying as “read”.

I tried doing this with a separate window open and searching unread messages, but they would keep disappearing after 5 seconds and then select the next one in line!

When you have a backlog of projects, it is difficult to track the un-reads when they are 40-100 messages down the list!
Joel says:

April 11, 2016 at 5:34 pm

Thanks.
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Oliver says:

July 8, 2017 at 11:40 am

I may be stating the obvious here, but my choice (in Outlook 2013) is to “untick” all three checkboxes in the above mentioned Reading Pane dialog box, so unread messages stay unread until I actually double-click and open them
evette says:

September 25, 2017 at 2:02 pm

Thank you Oliver!
Teresa says:

July 14, 2021 at 6:30 pm

Wonder if there is a way to do this within teams for the messages received there? I have a teammate that wants to keep her messages “unread” until she marks them as read to be sure she doesn’t miss any.