I really like using Outlook 2013 but there was one niggly little issue that was annoying me.

Everytime I viewed an email and it displayed in the Viewing Pane the email was still marked as unread. To mark it as read I had to either right click on it to mark it as read or click onto another email.

I didn't like either of these solutions so I went looking for an option to mark an email as read as soon as I viewed it in the reading pane.

In Outlook 2013 click on the blue 'File' option in the top left corner.

  • Select Options and choose Advanced.
  • Select Reading Pane from the Outlook Panes section.
  • Tick the box "Mark items as read when viewed in the Reading Pane".
  • If you want to mark as read instantly set the seconds box value to 0.

For Outlook 2007 it's slightly different:

  • Go to Tools -> Options and Other tab.
  • Click on Reading Pane under Outlook Panes.
  • Tick the box and set the seconds value as in the above example.