Revisit 2 levels in expanding out the list of messages in an email conversation (Office 365 via browser)

Question

I access my Office 365 email using a browser. Confusingly, the web app still identifies itself as Outlook. I typically have my messages grouped into conversations. When the list of individual messages are not yet expanded out, there is a rightward pointing caret symbol to the left of the conversation's subject line. When I click on the caret, the individual messages are expanded out and listed under the conversation's subject line, and the caret symbol rotates to a downward pointing position.

Last year, this behaviour has changed. When all messages are collapsed into a 1-line conversation heading, the caret still points right. When I click on it, however, a *few* messages are listed under the conversation head, and the caret remains pointing right. When I click it a *second* time, more messages become listed under the conversation heading, and only then does the caret point downward.

I very much want the old behaviour back, i.e., clicking the caret once makes it point downward and expands the conversation to show *all* messages.  Showing a subset of the messages causes more confusion than it helps.  Furthermore, my pointer obstructs the view of the caret, so it's never clear whether it's point down or to the bottom right.  I would prefer to have only two states: Conversation fully collapsed or fully expanded.

I first asked about this at:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook\_com/forum/all/2-levels-in-expanding-out-the-list-of-messages-in/f068ba88-212c-454c-956e-791a9f4cc9b1

It is now a year later.  Is there any way to banish this 3-state opening of an email conversation (closed, partly open, and fully open) to get back the old 2-state fully open/close?

Answer 1

I have been facing the same issue, so this topic helped me. Thanks.

If I understand things correctly, Outlook deciders pushed a new version recently, which has the following issues:

• they invented a new unintuitive UX pattern based on the proven one (i.e. "Click on the angle bracket to expand/collapse some detailed content") but this one has an intermediary state containing arbitrary content based on nothing that you can configure (oh this may be AI, what else would it be?) and the little angle bracket being rotated 45° so if you did not notice, well it is too bad for you, right?
• they made it the default way of displaying conversations for all outlook users
• they made sure no one can ever find the relevant setting to get back to the previous UX pattern (simple expand/collapse) by themselves because this is hidden behind wordings in the settings that make absolutely zero sense. "Newest on top" does actually show each line separately so why would there be a separate setting to "show lines separately"?

I do not know how the Outlook product is managed internally at Microsoft but I am afraid there are serious decision issues there. It would be funny if it did not ruin the product experience of litterally millions of people with a single update. They should fix these kinds of issues instead of implementing "Joyful animations" that nobody ever asked for.

Answer 2

Thank you Connery. That worked. I don't know how "Show each message separately" got selected. I have no idea what that means. Having the newest at the top makes the most sense for me.

Do you know what "Show each message separately" means?

Afternote: Sorry, I had to unmark the answer. I found out what it means to show each message separately, and that in fact is what I need. It means that only the selected message in the expanded conversation will show in the reading pane. If partial expansion of the conversation is unavoidable only for "Show each message separately", it seems like a bug. Right?

Answer 3

Hello, Connery,

I would agree that is wouldn't be a bug if there was a rationale for the behaviour. Since you see it as not a bug, would you be able to elaborate on why it makes sense for the behaviour to differ for just one of three options?

Answer 4

Hi FrankyMacky,

Sorry for my late reply!

Yes, you are right! This setting is to change how the reading pane view is arranged and the 3 options just work like what the pictures illustrate.

Furthermore, when you choose Newest on top or Newest on bottom, only the selected message is expanded while the other mails in the conversation are folded. You may go to View > Expand conversation to unfold them.

And as far as I am concerned, it seems this isn't a bug but a behavior by design. Thus it's suggested to submit your valuable feedback directly to Microsoft product development team by either go to Help > Feedback or by posting on Outlook · Community (microsoft.com).

Please note that nobody here are the product developers/decision makers and has no control over the product. Everyone, including us as community moderator, can only assist you on the query for providing available solutions and feature's availability status within our scope and capability.

To check more details about how to submit feedback, kindly refer this article Learn about how to provide feedback to Microsoft - Microsoft 365 admin | Microsoft Learn.

Appreciate your patience and understanding and thank you for your time and cooperation!

Answer 5

Dear FrankyMacky,

Greetings!

Thank you for posting on Microsoft Community!

Based on your description, I understand your issue regarding "Revisit 2 levels in expanding out the list of messages in an email conversation (Office 365 via browser)".

According to tests on my end, I can only reproduce the issue you mentioned when I go to Settings > Mail > Layout > Message organization > Arrange the reading pane and select Show each message separately.

And if I select either of the other two options, the same conversation is expanded wholly on my first click like in below screenshot. So would you please kindly try setting this option to Newest on top or Newest on botton to see if it works?

Thank you in advance for your understanding! Your patience and cooperation will be greatly appreciated. I hope all the best!