Outlook search results no longer showing beginning of emails

Question

Outlook search results no longer showing beginning of emails

Joe Russ 0

Outlook search results are no longer showing the first few lines of emails in the preview. Instead, they show random sections of the email including signatures, footers and previous replies.

This has made finding emails much more difficult.

The issue started within the last couple of weeks and occurs in both Classic Outlook and Outlook on the web.

Is this a recent change to Outlook search, and can I restore the previous message previews?

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Answer 1

Jade Ng 15,860 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Dear Joe Russ,

Since you are experiencing the same behavior in both Classic Outlook and Outlook on the web, I would first like to check whether Outlook is displaying the part of the message that contains the search term rather than consistently showing the beginning of the email.

To help narrow this down, could you please perform the following test?

Search for a distinctive word or phrase that appears only near the beginning of one affected email.
Check the preview displayed for that email in the search results.
Then search for a distinctive word or phrase located further down in the same email.
Check whether the preview changes to show the section containing that search term.

Please also let me know whether this behavior occurs with all emails you search for or only certain messages, such as long email threads with multiple replies.

As an additional test in Classic Outlook, you can reset the Message Preview setting:

On the View tab, select Message Preview, and then select Off. If you're prompted, select All mailboxes.
Select Message Preview again, and then select the preview setting that you prefer (1 Line, 2 Lines, or 3 Lines).
Select All mailboxes in the dialog box that appears.

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Kindly let me know how it goes. Thank you for your kindness and understanding.

Joe Russ 0 Reputation points

2026-10-09T04:30:12.6333333+00:00

Hi Jade,

Thank you for getting back to me.

I have tried searching for "Hi [name]" and search results are finding the emails, however, the previews are showing sender details, CC addresses and subject lines from previous replies rather than the beginning of the actual message.

This seems to be happening across most emails, particularly longer conversations.

I have also tried resetting the Message Preview settings as suggested, but unfortunately this has not made any difference.

As the issue is occurring in both Classic Outlook and Outlook on the web, I was wondering if this could be related to a recent update?

Thank you again for your help,

Joe
Jade Ng 15,860 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-10-09T05:31:52.7633333+00:00

Dear Joe Russ,

Thank you for your update.

I have also tested this behavior in my own environment and was able to reproduce a similar issue with Outlook search results, where the expected message preview is not displayed as anticipated.

I also found this documentation Search results are displayed without message preview in Outlook. Microsoft explains that search-result previews can vary depending on the underlying search technology and the search scope being used. It also notes that changing the Message Preview setting only affects certain scenarios, so the behavior may continue even after the setting has been reset.

Since you have already tried resetting the Message Preview setting and the same behavior occurs in both Classic Outlook and Outlook on the web, I recommend raising a support ticket so that the behavior can be investigated. Additionally, you can report this behavior through Help > Feedback in Outlook. This allows you to provide details about the issue and share your experience with the Outlook product team.

Please understand that as forum moderator, my primary goal is to provide helpful guidance and support through general troubleshooting steps. While I don’t have access to internal systems required to resolve account issues, I truly appreciate your understanding of these limitations. I genuinely hope the information I share helps guide you in the right direction, and I'm always here to assist as much as I can within my scope.

I hope this helps! Please feel free to reply below if you have any update or further concern.