Read attachments

Sometimes, senders may attach files in their emails. When you receive these emails, you can save the attachments to read them, or preview them in the Reading Pane or message window directly. And this tutorial will show how to read attachments directly, and configure attachments preview settings as well.

Preview attachments in the Reading Pane or message window
Read attachments in their default programs
Turn on or off attachment preview

Note: Methods introduced on this page apply to Microsoft Outlook 2019 desktop program in Windows 10. And the instructions may vary significantly or slightly depending on the version of Microsoft Outlook and the Windows environments.

Preview attachments in the Reading Pane or message window

When reading an email in the Reading Pane or message window, you can click the specified attachment below the subject to preview it directly.

Notes: when previewing an attachment in the Reading Pane or message window, you can click Back to message above the attachments to return to the message content.

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Read attachments in their default programs

When reading an email in the Reading Pane or message window, please double click the specified attachment to open it in its default opening program, and then read it in depth.

Turn on or off attachment preview

If you need to prevent the attachment from being previewed in the Reading Pane or message window, you can turn off the attachment preview. In addition, you can also turn off the attachment preview for a certain file type only.

1. Click File > Options.

2. In the Outlook Options dialog, please click Trust Center in the left bar, and then click the Trust Center Settings button.

3. In the Trust Center dialog, you can turn off or on the attachment preview as follows:
(1) You can turn off the attachment preview for all kinds of attachments as follows: (1) click Attachment Handling in the left bar; (2) tick the Turn off Attachment Preview option to turn off the attachment preview.

Tips: Clearing the Turn off Attachment Preview option will turn on the attachment preview.

(2) You can turn off the attachment preview for a certain file type only, says Visio drawings as follows: (1) click Attachment Handling in the left bar; (2) click the Attachment and Document Previewers button; (3) in the File Previewing Options dialog, uncheck the specified file type (Microsoft Visio previewer in my case), and click the OK button.

Tips: Ticking applications in the File Previewing Options dialog will enable previewing these types of attachments.