Disable Message Preview Text in Windows 10 Mail App

Windows 10 Mail Icon

Windows 10 includes a new Mail app which is simplistic and allows you to send and receive e-mail from multiple accounts. By default, the app show the subject and first line of an email message in list of messages. For privacy reasons, you might want to hide the first line (message preview) and only have the subject line shown for your emails.

Windows 10 comes with a Universal app, "Mail". The app is intended to provide basic email functionality to Windows 10 users. It supports multiple accounts, comes with preset settings to quickly add mail accounts from popular services, and includes all the essential functionality to read, send and receive emails.

Tip: One of the features of the Mail app in Windows 10 is the ability to customize the app's background image. See the following article:

Change Mail App Background to Custom Color in Windows 10

Also, the Mail app allows taking notes on pictures or adding a drawing using a pen or your finger. Go to the Draw tab in the ribbon to get started.

  • Insert a Drawing Canvas from the ribbon anywhere in your email to add a sketch.
  • Annotate any picture by drawing on or next to it.
  • Use ink effects like galaxy, rainbow, and rose gold colored pens.

To disable the message preview text in Windows 10 Mail, do the following.

  1. Open the Mail app. You can find it in the Start menu. Tip: To save your time, use the alphabet navigation to quickly get to the Mail app.
  2. In the Mail app, click the gear icon to open its Settings pane. See the screenshot below.
  3. In Settings, click on Message list.
  4. Scroll down to the Preview text section.
  5. Turn off the option Show a preview of a message's text.

You are done.

Before:

After:

You can re-enable the mentioned option at any moment later.

That's it.

Related articles:

Support us

Winaero greatly relies on your support. You can help the site keep bringing you interesting and useful content and software by using these options:

If you like this article, please share it using the buttons below. It won't take a lot from you, but it will help us grow. Thanks for your support!

Author: Sergey Tkachenko

Sergey Tkachenko is a software developer who started Winaero back in 2011. On this blog, Sergey is writing about everything connected to Microsoft, Windows and popular software. Follow him on Telegram, Twitter, and YouTube.

2 thoughts on “Disable Message Preview Text in Windows 10 Mail App”

  1. Win 10 ‘mail’ is buggy in display capabilities, but it CAN be set to full-screen display without a reading (preview) pane. I can’t see how to attach an image, but I can send it if needed.

    To get there required some tinkering with a combination of: (1) window mode (restore down), (2) compact message spacing (under Settings > Personalization), (3) expanding or contracting the accounts pane (≡ at top left), (4) dragging the window at the sides / top / bottom to fill the screen, and (5) repositioning the window if necessary. It may take a couple of attempts, but the message display then changes from the multi-line compact mode to a 2-line (ultra-compact) mode with pop-up symbols (archive /bin / flag) at left and text preview (if on in settings) towards the right (before the date). Somehow this became the default view for me when ‘mail’ opens. Double-clicking opens the message in a new full-screen window. Great!

    But when I tried to get the same thing for another account on the same computer, it only works for the session (in the expanded window mode, which is no really a full-screen mode). Then it defaults to an ultra-compact mode but with the reading pane when re-opened (as full screen).

    I can’t find where mail window settings are stored. But this experience may be a clue for those more skilled in such matters. It could interact with other tweaked settings, in Win10, but I don’t think so.

  2. If mail defaults to to the ultra-compact mode (actually 1 line per message) but with a reading pane when re-opened (as mentioned above): The nearest work-around I found is to make the expanded window for mail (as mentioned above) just smaller than full screen (experiment with how much smaller if necessary: don’t make it touch the screen edges). Then mail will re-open to the same configuration from a shortcut that has Properties > Run : Normal window. And selecting a message will open it in a large new window. Great!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

Exit mobile version
Using Telegram? Subscribe to the blog channel!
Hello. Add your message here.