Outlook Emails Become Read Before You Open Them - Fix and Stop Here

I was also finding that some of my Outlook messages would go from a bold, unread color to the lighter, already read, color even if I didn't open it. I think what was happening was that as long as my cursor was on the email in my inbox, even without opening it, it would automatically appear as read. Outlooks presumes that since you can see it in the preview (ie the “reading pane”) the email has been read (which isn’t always true)

Anyway…. Here is how to fix this… we’re on Outlook 2010 but this might still work if you are on another version

Let’s presume you are in you MS Outlook inbox (you could be in the sent bin or trash bin or most screens but let's just go with inbox for now :-) . At the very top left of your computer screen is the the FILE tab. Click on FILE

Then down the left side of your screen is OPTIONS. Click on OPTIONS

Then the “Outlook Options” window will appear (see attachment). Down the left side, left column of the screen you will see a bunch of things to choose from. Look down the left side of the window and click on MAIL

Then a small section appears in the “Outlook Options” window that is called “Outlook Panes” Inside this section on the right side of the window is the READING PANE button. Click READING PANE

Then a smaller “Reading Pane” window will appear . See where it says “Mark Item as read when viewed in the reading pane” Click on that box so that the check mark disappears.

Now... here's were it didn't quite work for me. I swore just un-checking this box would have done the trick, but you need to remove the check mark from the one below it too. Keep reading

See the Box " Mark item as read when selection changes " box? Make sure there is no check in that box either.

I hope that helped you to fix your Outlook emails from showing up as read before you read them. I found this very frustrating that Outlook made the emails go to 'read' by default before opening and reading them rather than the opposite. This method will trouble shoot the automatic read by default issue and your email will remain unread until you actually click on it and open it up on the screen.

In case you are still using Lotus Notes and you want to set up an email that you can use over and over again, I wrote a post here on one of the greatest sites ever, HubPages, that will show you how to create an email template easy on Lotus

If you also use Lotus Notes and by some chance your mouse is not working, don't fret, you can still scroll up and down those emails on the the screen without it. Of course, by all means go out there and buy yourself a freakin' mouse, but if you find yourself stuck, really stuck, and you don't have any other choice I wrote a post on how you can still scroll Lotus Notes without it. I know, I know, this will never happen but if it does, this post will help you to resolve the problem and help you to get back to reading your mails all over again no matter where they are on the screen.