Highlight Color of Selected Message in Outlook for Mac

Anonymous
2023-09-11T15:46:07+00:00

I have my Outlook for Mac inbox setup with the list of emails on the left and the reading pane on the right.  When scrolling through the list of messages in the list on the left, in my inbox as well as messages stored in other folders, it is very difficult for me to tell which email is selected in the list.  Many years ago, when a message was selected in the list it was highlighted in a deep blue color… Now it’s a very faint light blue color that is really hard for me to see (yes I do have some vision issues... but it's also so faint I have to imagine others have the same issue).  

As a result, I frequently delete the wrong email etc. because I can't tell what is actually highlighted.  Is there a way to change the default color of a highlighted message in the list, to make it easier to tell which message is highlighted?  I tried messing around with the overall theme in the settings, and while the red theme made it a bit better I sort of hate the look of the other themes... so is there a way to only change of the highlighted message? If not, do you have any recommendations on how to avoid these mistakes?

Thanks for your help

Outlook | MacOS | Legacy Outlook for Mac | For business

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  1. Anonymous
    2024-08-04T16:08:56+00:00

    I am so unbelievably tired of this constant response to "provide feedback on this feature request by creating a new post in the Feedback Portal at Outlook · Community (microsoft.com), Microsoft is committed to enhancing the customer experience by continually examining suggestions to include in the design and development of future product upgrades based on your suggestions."

    This thread on this particular subject has been going on for probably one year already. I'm sure this is not the only one in existence either. It's beyond comprehension how Microsoft WILL NOT address this issue. For someone with vision issues already, this just exacerbates the difficulty I have at work. I manage huge Excel files on a daily basis and the number of times I have to walk away from my laptop before I throw it out of frustration is growing.

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-08-02T00:42:17+00:00

    As the originator of this thread I can confirm that even after a number updates this STLL does not work. How so Microsft? It surely is an easy fix.

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-06-05T16:32:09+00:00

    What a terrible and insulting answer.

    I dont see any highlight at all on newer m2 and m3 airs. This is not a trivial problem.

    It is a frikin huge issue to not know what msg is selected.

    If I can not deploy this to my users, whY do I need O365 at all?

    Why does MS treat the user experience with such a low priority?

    That's why Mac users use Macs in the first place.

    Adhere to Apple's standards and stop trying to force MS's abysmal UIs.

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-03-26T00:56:49+00:00

    WORKAROUND!

    This might help you:

    Put Outlook into Dark Mode. I get a better, more visible highlight. It's better, but not great, but useable (again, well short of great--say 2.5/5 stars). But you can see the highlights of the selected messages.

    In Outlook:

    Preferences-->General-->Appearance--> Dark Mode

    I also tried changing the message heading color to orange or green, because both help me with text visibility, as a side note.

    Best of success to everyone experiencing this issue on Outlook Mac

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  5. Anonymous
    2024-03-14T12:24:21+00:00

    It is embarrassing that what is an extremely simple fix cannot has not been applied to this issue.

    A quick search shows that this same question has been posted as far back as 2011 (that I see). I currently use Dark Mode which does show the "selected" message in dark gray, but the non-selected, non-flagged messages are also a shade of gray that is too close to the selected message.

    How has this not been fixed in a reasonable way (like allowing an override, user background color preference to be chosen for currently selected messages) for over a decade?!?

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