What is it about Outlook and its reading pane? That reading or preview pane is nice and pretty and helpful but if you don't want it, you don't need to keep it. There are two ways to turn it off: by default and by all folders. The Reading pane is enabled by default. When you click on a message in any folder, the pane displays the contents of that message, along with basic controls for replying and forwarding the message. By default, Outlook shows the Reading pane to the right of the folders and messages, but you can change this by going to View > Reading Pane.
The preview pane is a feature built into many email programs that allows users to quickly view the content of a message without actually opening it. While this is a convenient feature, it also has the potential to put your computer at the same risk as opening a suspicious message. For example, when using the preview pane feature, your email program may open an email message that you really didn't want to open. Further, if you have the preview pane turned on, there is no good way to delete the message without first previewing it. To turn off the preview pane:.
![Mac Mac](https://support.content.office.net/en-us/media/7a5800aa-b7c1-401f-bbf9-2358cbff77ba.png)
In Microsoft Outlook 2003 and 2007, select the View menu, navigate to Reading pane and click Off. In Windows Mail, click on the View menu and select Layout. Under the Preview Pane section, uncheck ' Show preview pane'. In Mozilla Thunderbird, drag the splitter of the message pane down, until the message pane is no longer visible, the reading pane then collapses. In Mac's Mail application, drag the splitter of the message pane down, until the message pane is no longer visible, the pane then collapses. In Microsoft Entourage, select the View menu, navigate to Preview Pane and select None.