How to Change the Number of Preview Lines in Outlook 2013 Messages

Does it seem like too much of each email message is being shown in your inbox in Outlook?

You might prefer to see more messages in the inbox at once and don’t care as much about whether or not you see the message preview content. By reducing the amount of preview content that you see for each email, you can fit more messages in each view.

If you would prefer this display option, then our tutorial will show you how to change the number of preview lines in Outlook 2013 messages so that you see more messages at once.

How to Show a Smaller or Larger Email Preview in Microsoft Outlook

  1. Open Outlook.
  2. Select Mail at the bottom of the window.
  3. Choose the View tab at the top.
  4. Click Message Preview, then choose an option.
  5. Choose whether to apply this to All mailboxes or This folder.

Our guide continues below with additional information on how to change the number of preview lines in Outlook 2013 messages, including pictures of these steps.

Would you like to be able to view more email messages in your Inbox at once?

Or do you wish that you could read more of an email message before you opened it?

You can achieve either of these results by adjusting the number of Message Preview lines shown in a folder in Outlook 2013.

Our tutorial below will show you which settings you need to adjust in order to modify the number of preview lines.

You can elect to display anywhere between zero and three lines of preview text, and you can specify the number of preview lines either individually for each folder or for all of your folders at once.

How to Select the Number of Message Preview Lines in Outlook 2013 (Guide with Pictures)

The steps in this article will adjust the number of lines of your emails that are shown by the Message Preview feature.

This refers to the panel in Outlook 2013 that lists the emails in the currently active folder.

These settings can be applied to either every folder at the same time or individually by each folder. You can select which option you prefer in the last step of the tutorial below.

Step 1: Open Microsoft Outlook 2013.

Step 2: Click the Mail option at the bottom-left corner of the window.

click the mail tab

Step 3: Click the View tab at the top of the window.

click the view tab

Step 4: Click the Message Preview button in the Arrangement section of the Office ribbon, then select the number of lines that you want to show via the Message Preview.

Note that more messages will be shown in the window if the number of preview lines is smaller.

click the message preview button

Step 5: Select whether you wish to apply the preview setting for All mailboxes, or just This folder.

select the folders to apply it to

Now that you how to change the number of preview lines in Outlook 2013 messages, you will be able to choose whether or not you can see more or fewer emails in your inbox at once.

Do you have an email in Outlook 2013 that you want to send at a later time or date? This tutorial will show you how to start using this feature.

See also

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