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
    2024-07-21T05:17:19+00:00

    This is Unacceptable. I have exactly the same issue. You guys made the shading too light and no way to change. Come on!

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-03-17T03:03:01+00:00

    Likely because Microsoft doesn't consider Mac users any kind of priority. I'm guessing most Mac users who use Outlook do so because they are in a Windows shop and need to use Outlook to more easily get their email. If MS cared even a little about making Mac users happy, they would have fixed this a long time ago. It is an accessibility issue, and would cause a website to fail an accessibility test. It is shameful that they won't take what would probably be a few hours of coding time to fix this.

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-03-15T16:48:52+00:00

    Thanks for your suggestions, but these options are different on Outlook for Mac OS.

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-03-14T14:45:44+00:00

    Hi everyone -

    I was glad to find this thread as I thought I was the only one struggling with this. I'm using the Outlook 365 desktop app on a PC running Windows 11 and found you can change the color of the selected email to make it stand out better by changing the theme in the Outlook app settings (Settings>General>Appearance). Mine was using the white classic theme and the selected email was a faint blue, and by switching to the gray modern theme the highlighted color is darker blue. Some of the other 'classic' themes have even more contrast and you can play around to see what works best for you. Hope this helps some of you!

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  5. Anonymous
    2024-03-11T01:19:28+00:00

    It's an issue!

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