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Outlook: Automatically mark emails as read

Author: Siluvia Last Modified: 2024-11-15

By default, Outlook doesn’t mark an email as read until you select a different message. This can be inconvenient—for example, if you press the Delete key to remove a message you just previewed in the reading pane, it will still appear as unread in the Deleted Items folder. This tutorial provides two methods to mark emails as read in Outlook automatically..

Automatically mark the email as read while in preview in Outlook

Mark all emails in Deleted Items folder as read with Kutools for Outlook


Automatically mark the email as read while in preview in Outlook

In Outlook, you can set an option to automatically mark emails as read when viewed in the Reading pane.

1. Please click File > Options. See screenshot:

doc-mark-email-as-read-4

2. In the Outlook Options dialog, click Advanced on the left pane. And then click Reading Pane under Outlook Panes.

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3. In the Reading Pane dialog, please check the Mark items as read when viewed in the Reading Pane box. And then click OK to close it. See screenshot:

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Note: In the Wait seconds before marking item as read field, enter a certain time in the box.

4. When it returns to the previous dialog, click OK to finish the whole settings.


Mark all emails in Deleted Items folder as read with Kutools for Outlook

Sometimes, after deleting a batch of unread emails, they still show up as unread in the Deleted Items folder. To address this, Kutools for Outlook offers two handy features to mark all unread emails in the Deleted Items folder across all accounts as read. You can either manually mark them with a few clicks or set it to automatically mark deleted items as read.

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🟦 Mark all delete items as read with clicks

Step 1. After installing Kutools for Outlook, click Kutools Plus > Utilities > Mark as Read > Mark Deleted Items as Read.

mark all deleted items as read with Kutools for Outlook

Step 2. Click "Yes" to mark deleted items as read in the subfolder as well, or click "No" to mark them as read only in the main folder.

mark all deleted items as read including subfolder with Kutools for Outlook

Now all emails in Deleted Items folder are mark as read.

🟦 Mark deleted items as read automatically

Step 1. After installing Kutools for Outlook, click Kutools Plus > Utilities > Mark as Read > Enable Mark Deleted as Read.

mark all deleted items as read with Kutools for Outlook

Step 2. Click "Yes" to mark deleted items as read in the subfolder as well, or click "No" to mark them as read only in the main folder.

mark all deleted items as read including subfolder with Kutools for Outlook

From now on, all emails in the Deleted Items folder, including any future deleted emails, will be marked as read automatically.


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