How to Hide the Reading Pane in AOL Mail

When you are viewing your AOL emails on a Web browser, you may be accustomed to seeing a short list of your messages at the top of the window.

Then, when you click one of those messages, it is displayed in a reading pane at the bottom of the window.

The location where the message is displayed is called the Reading Pane, and it provides a convenient way for you to quickly view a lot of emails.

But you might not like reading your emails in that location and would prefer to open them separately.

Our tutorial below will show you how to change the layout and behavior of your AOL account by removing the reading pane. This will also allow you to see more of your inbox on the screen.

How to Remove the Reading Panel Below the Inbox in AOL Mail

The steps in this article were performed in the desktop version of Google Chrome, but are the same in other desktop Web browsers, too.

Making this change will affect the way that your AOL Mail inbox looks in any Web browser on any computer where you view your mail. This will not change the way that you view your AOL Mail in any third-party mail applications, however.

Step 1: Go to https://mail.aol.com and sign into your AOL email account.

Step 2: Choose the Options button at the top-right of the window, then click the Customize option.

open the aol customize menu

Step 3: Click the box to the left of Show Reading Pane to remove the check mark. The layout of your inbox should change immediately, and you should now see more of your inbox in place of where the reading pane was previously located.

how to hide the reading pane in aol mail

Now that you know how to hide the reading pane in AOL Mail, you can use this option to adjust the appearance of your inbox so that it is more suited to your preferences.

If you are interested in changing the look and feel of your AOL inbox, then you might want to get rid of the “Today on AOL” page that you see when you first sign in. Learn how to open AOL to your inbox if you don’t need to see the articles and other information that you typically see when you first open it.

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