Outlook.com web interface and the Outlook desktop apps show the next email when you delete or move an email. I do not quite like it, as I am not interested in reading every email in my list. So, I want Outlook to show me the list of messages when I delete an email I’m already reading or move it to another folder. Then, I can open the next email that I want to read.
While I don’t understand the logic behind making such things a default, thankfully, an override is just a few clicks away. There’s a settings item that lets us choose what action the system should take when we delete or move an email. So, we can either show the next/previous message or return back to the message list.
To make the change, follow the steps below. They are the same for the Outlook.com web interface as well as the Outlook Windows app.
- Open Outlook settings by clicking on the gear icon ⚙️
The gear icon is at the top right of the screen. It will be behind the three dots (…) if your browser window is not wide enough.
- Navigate to Mail > Layout
Click on the Mail icon on the left sidebar. Then, ensure that you’re within the Layout section.
- Modify the ‘What do you want to happen’ setting
Scroll down the settings items until you find the headline What do you want to happen when you move or delete the item you are viewing?
Set the option to “Return to the message list“.
- Click on the Save button
The settings change does not get saved automatically. So, click on the Save button once you’re done making changes to the aforementioned and any other settings.
The above should help you get rid of Outlook’s annoying behavior, where the next email shows up when you delete an email. It not only marks unwanted emails as read but also adds to the inconvenience by requiring additional actions to return to the list of emails.