Does viewing an email in the reading pane of Outlook 2016/2019/2021 count as "opening" an email when highlighting the email in your mailbox?

Chene 21 Reputation points
2022-03-31T17:34:44.607+00:00

Does viewing an email in the reading pane of Outlook 2016/2019/2021 count as "opening" an email when highlighting the email in your mailbox? We are concerned if simply viewing the email in the reading pane of Outlook (not double-clicking the email to open it in a separate window) would activate any malicious contents that may be in an email. Our workplace is using an on-site Exchange server with our Outlook 2016, Outlook 2019, and Outlook 2021 clients.

Outlook | Windows | Classic Outlook for Windows | For business
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  1. ChristyZhang-MSFT 26,126 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff
    2022-04-01T03:39:08.957+00:00

    Hi @Chene ,

    Welcome to our forum!

    Agree with AndyDavid, emails in the Reading Pane will only be previewed. Of course, you can also make a variety of settings for your reading pane. For more information about Reading Pane, please refer to: Use and configure the Reading Pane to preview messages.

    If you still do not believe that the reading pane will not run active content, use Outlook's read as plain text option via File > Options > Trust Center > Email Security > Read as Plain Text(as shown in the below figure). It's safe to convert all messages to plain text. With one click in the message bar, you can easily revert to HTML format to read any message in HTML format.

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    Hope the above help!


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  1. Andy David - MVP 157.8K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2022-03-31T18:11:22.24+00:00
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