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I'm testing an upgrade from 2007 to 2010 but am unable to configure the Conversation View for email the way I want it. I want to be able to navigate the conversation list via keyboard and fully expand an email thread with a single keystroke.

This worked out of the box for me in 2007, but in 2010, I have to press the right arrow key twice to get what I want. The first time it only shows a subset of the messages, I have to press the right arrow a second time to fully expand it and show the hierarchy of who is replying to who.

Unless there is a modifier that I'm unaware of, the option to Always Expand Conversations isn't what I want. While it does fully open the conversation in a single shot, because it triggers automatically if I leave conversation selected for more than a fraction of a second it makes navigating a folder of them by keyboard painful.

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Dan Is Fiddling By Firelight
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  • I think you will find this interesting.http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2015/02/email_overload_building_my_own_email_app_to_reach_inbox_zero.html – Xavierjazz Mar 03 '15 at 03:48
  • @Xavierjazz I might have 10 years, and innumerable regurgitations of it from one click bait content farm to the next ago... – Dan Is Fiddling By Firelight Mar 03 '15 at 03:54
  • I don't understand.Good luck. – Xavierjazz Mar 03 '15 at 03:57
  • In Outlook 2013, one right key arrow works to expand the conversation when "Always Expand Conversations" is turned off. I'm going to guess that Outlook 2010 has a regression bug that was working in Outlook 2007, and fixed again for Outlook 2013. – Sun Mar 03 '15 at 17:48
  • @sunk818: I don't think what I'm seeing in 2010 could be called a regression bug. From descriptions of what's going on MS decided to be "clever" and only show an abbreviated subset of messages containing unique text. Any messages that were fully quoted in a reply are initially hidden. If that's changed in 2013, I'd call it a user revolt instead. I have access to MS HUP via my employer, so I can get a copy of 2013 cheaply. I'm not thrilled by the styling changes; but a working tree view combined with all day meetings showing on the appointment list (07 doesn't) is worth it I guess. – Dan Is Fiddling By Firelight Mar 03 '15 at 22:22
  • Perhaps I used an incorrect term. Main point was to share outlook 2013 behavior being same as outlook 2007 – Sun Mar 03 '15 at 22:24

1 Answers1

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I'm using Outlook 2013 but was still only seeing a subset of messages when I used the right arrow key once (i.e. I had to hit it twice to see all messages). I'm not sure if this work-around is possible in Outlook 2010, but you might want to give it a try:

  1. View > Conversation Settings > Always Expand Selected Conversation
  2. File > Options > Mail > Don't automatically expand conversations when using the keyboard to change messages (this is all the way at the bottom of the page under 'Other' for me, but not sure if it will be for everybody)

When you navigate to a new folder, the first conversation (automatically selected) will still expand, but at least you can then navigate within the folder using the keyboard without every conversation expanding as you go. And you will see all the emails in that conversation, not just a subset.

Stephen Rauch
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Caitlin
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