Hotmail.com Emails Have Larger Margins

Question

Hotmail.com Emails Have Larger Margins

Steven G 20

Within the last couple of days, all my emails in my hotmail.com account, no matter the formatting, and no matter how old they are, have much wider margins, left and right. So the text of the email is more compact, squished. Why did this happen? And how do I get my email margins back to what they were? And zooming in or out doesn't change anything.

When I hit reply, the margins go back to normal.

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3 answers

Your answer

Answer 1

merrilee Carty 0

With in the last week all my email are gone in in outlook.

Ian-T 16,800 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-11-15T00:34:44.3366667+00:00

Feel free to create another question since your comment is not related to the original poster's issue.
Hornblower409 19,160 Reputation points

2026-11-15T00:34:58.74+00:00

@merrilee Carty said

With in the last week all my email are gone in in outlook

You will not get any help by asking an unrelated question in this thread. You need to start a new thread using the "Ask a question" button at the top of this page to create a new Question and include the details for your specific problem.

Answer 2

Ian-T 16,800 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hi @Steven G

First, please check the AI answer

Since the wider margins affect both old and new messages, while the reply editor still appears normal, the original formatting of your emails has most likely not changed. This sounds more like a rendering issue in Outlook.com.

Please try opening Outlook.com in an InPrivate or Incognito window. If the messages display normally there, a browser extension or stored site data may be interfering with the reading view. You can then disable extensions one at a time, especially ad blockers or page-formatting extensions, and clear the site data specifically for outlook.live.com.

It would also be useful to test the mailbox in a different browser. If the same margins appear in multiple browsers and devices, the change may be coming from Outlook.com itself rather than from your browser settings.

Steven G 20 Reputation points

2026-11-13T23:04:43.3233333+00:00

Using Firefox, in a Private Window, I didn't have this issue. Tried Chrome, in a regular browser window, it wasn't as bad. The left margin was over to the right, very slightly, but the right margin was OK. I don't have extensions, except a zoom percentage. I disabled it, in Firefox. That made the font size very small, including this web page. After re-enabling it, the Hotmail email was a bit better. Similar to Chrome.
Steven G 20 Reputation points

2026-11-13T23:37:37.2066667+00:00

I was wrong. After re-enabling the zoom percentage extension, the emails are back to the wide margins.
Hornblower409 19,160 Reputation points

2026-11-14T04:28:37.4666667+00:00

@Steven G said

Emails Have Larger Margins

I am tracking some other reports of the same problem. Could you post a screenshot showing the wider margin (with any personal information redacted). That would help compare what you see with the other recent reports.
Steven G 20 Reputation points

2026-11-15T00:21:29.8966667+00:00

Screen shot attached. The left margin is further to the right, but the right margin isn't as bad as my other emails, for some reason. So all of my other emails are worse than this, more narrower. The grey line on the far left is the border of the email.
Ian-T 16,800 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-11-15T00:33:21.2166667+00:00

Thank you Hornblower for joining

Hi Steven, please feel free to send the screenshot again as I do not see any screenshots
Hornblower409 19,160 Reputation points

2026-11-15T00:40:56.9533333+00:00

@Steven G

So all of my other emails are worse than this, more narrower.

I got this image from another thread on this topic. Is this similar to what you are seeing? For the left margin size increase.
Hornblower409 19,160 Reputation points

2026-11-15T00:49:09.3633333+00:00
@Steven G Just FYI

Capture and Paste a Screen Shot

Use the Windows Snipping Tool to capture a Screen Shot, See https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/use-snipping-tool-to-capture-screenshots

After you have captured the screen shot, in the Snipping Tool window, use the "Pen" tool to scribble over any personal info in your image. e.g. Cover over any full email address.

Click on the "Add comment" box below this post to start a new Comment.

Right-Click in the new Comment box and choose "Paste".

In the "Insert Image" dialog that pops up at the top of the Comment, click [Insert image].

You should see your image appear in the Comment.

Answer 3

Outlook.com has no separate control for message-body margins, so change the Reading pane to Bottom or Hide to restore more horizontal space for messages.

Change the reading layout

In Outlook.com, select Settings (gear icon).
Go to Mail → Layout.
Find Reading pane.
Select Show on the bottom and reopen a message.
If the text is still constrained, select Hide and open the message in its own window.

Microsoft documents Right, Bottom, and Hide as the available reading-pane positions; display density changes spacing in the message list, not margins inside the message body.^1^

Because old and new messages are affected while the reply editor remains normal, this is a reading-view issue rather than formatting stored in the emails.

Check whether Immersive Reader is active

If the message appears in a focused or full-screen reading view:

Press Esc, or select the back arrow, to leave Immersive Reader.
Reopen the message normally.

Immersive Reader can change text size and spacing and is separate from the reply editor.^2^

If every Outlook.com element has changed size

Reset the browser zoom:

Press Ctrl+0 on Windows or Command+0 on macOS.
Alternatively, open the browser menu and set Zoom to 100%.

Outlook.com uses browser zoom for changing the reading size.^3^

If the mailbox controls remain their normal size and only the opened message has wider margins, browser zoom is unlikely to be the cause. If none of these changes restores the previous width, use Help in Outlook.com and report it as a reading-pane layout change; Microsoft does not currently document a dedicated setting for reverting message-body margins.

References