It's all over the forums. No word from Microsoft yet.
Microsoft needs to fix the Reading Pane setting in Outlook for Mac's latest update 10.29.25
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Bishop Cheen
45
Reputation points
Outlook for Mac update 16.102.2 on October 29, 2025 has a bug in the View setting. It forces the Reading Pane for a selected email to be below the list of recent emails rather than to the right of the the recent emails list. The settings change suggested by Microsoft is View > Reading Pane > Right ....but that setting does not last. The reading pane reverts back to Below email list whenever Outlook is opened again. Will Microsoft fix this bug on the next update?
Outlook | MacOS | Legacy Outlook for Mac | For home
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Marla 115 Reputation points2025-10-30T08:40:11.04+00:00 Thank you for reporting this, Bishop-I have the same issue and have reported it on another thread. I have also reported it via the Help-Contact Support in my Outlook for Mac App.
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Ellen Matloff 10 Reputation points2025-10-31T15:35:24.4533333+00:00 Bishop, thank you !! This is making me NUTS.
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Rajan Gemawat 0 Reputation points2025-11-02T06:03:21.1266667+00:00 Hello Bishop
Good Morning.....
I am also facing this same issue & it's driving me crazy. Every time I restart my outlook, I need to change setting again. Do we have any solution for this ?
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Marla 115 Reputation points
2025-11-02T10:13:23.54+00:00 Rajan-good morning. As of yet, there is no fix. I reported this issue via the Help-Contact Support feature in Outlook and received the below reply (as of yesterday):
"Thank for the response. There is no official confirmation from Microsoft that a fix for the Outlook for Mac reading pane issue has been published. The bug is still active in build 16.102.2, and it is not listed among resolved issues on Microsoft’s known issues page. Since addressing this requires thorough testing and a structured rollout. I'll go ahead and close this ticket now. If you ever need further assistance, feel free to reach out through the same support channel. Your feedback is valuable to us! Please stay in this chat window to share your experience. Thank you for reaching out to Outlook Support. Wishing you a wonderful day ahead!" 🎉
And so it seems they are aware of the issue, but it does not sound like the fix will be quick. At least it is now listed as a known issue-this was not the case until very recently.:
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JK Thompson 0 Reputation points2025-11-02T17:33:30.6166667+00:00 I rolled back to version 16.102.2 (25101223)* which doesn't have this issue. Any version beyond including the latest beta still resets the Pane on relaunch. This version is in the installer I downloaded today (11-2). Didn't have any issues with my Profile on rollback. This is in 'Legacy' mode as well. Hope this is helpful.
CORRECTION: The version above is the working Outlook. Anything beyond including version 16.102.2 (25102623) is broken. Sorry for the confusion. : /
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Bishop Cheen 45 Reputation points
2025-11-02T17:44:32.1266667+00:00 thank you JK. very helpful. many of the comments have also been helpful but i've been traveling and could not get to all of them to say THANK YOU.
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Rajan Gemawat 0 Reputation points
2025-11-03T03:51:18.1166667+00:00 Thanks Marla for your outmost efforts & sharing this information.
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Marla 115 Reputation points
2025-11-03T08:06:42.7933333+00:00 JK Thompson-I, too have, version 16.102.2 but am using the Legacy version, and I do believe, that it is the Legacy version that is having the bug, i.e., see Microsoft's description of the issue here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/when-the-reading-pane-is-set-to-one-side-or-hidden-it-is-not-retained-upon-re-launch-in-legacy-outlook-for-mac-8b038098-e940-4d07-94b7-b33c62a157d1
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Kayece Jan Mae Amizola 10,440 Reputation points Independent Advisor2025-10-30T01:28:50.0566667+00:00 Hi,
It seems that there are users who have the same issue as yours. Please try the solutions below.
Please try to clear the cache on your Outlook app, then restart your device.
If it does not work, try resetting Outlook on Mac.
- Ensure that all Microsoft Office applications are closed before proceeding.
- Open the Finder application on your Mac.
- Navigate to Templates Folder:
Go to ~/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/User Content/Templates.
- Move the file Normal.dotm to the Desktop. This will allow Outlook to rebuild the template file.
- Locate Preference Files:
Go to ~/Library/Preferences.
- Locate the files com.microsoft.outlook.plist and com.microsoft.Office.plist.
- Move these files to the Desktop. Outlook will rebuild these preference files upon restart.
- Restart your MacPlease try to clear the cache on your Outlook app, then restart your device.
If the above does not work, please send feedback regarding this issue. You can send feedback directly from your Outlook, or you can send it to the Microsoft Feedback Hub.
If you require further assistance, please don't hesitate to let me know.
Stay Safe!
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Michael Callahan 0 Reputation points2025-10-30T17:04:54.2133333+00:00 Hi Kayece. Thank you for offering a solution. I tried it but it didn't change anything. I just moved the two .plist files back.
Also, I dragged the Outlook app into the trash and reinstalled an older version, 16.101.3. It works just fine and View allows me to hide the reading pane. All is well, for now.
Mike
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