Email on Gmail account are not getting marked as read

The single most important things for all individuals in the free world are business communications, business scheduling and timely notification. Without those capabilities, there's no need for anything else. Everything else on a PC is irrelevant. Without those capabilities Windows serves no fundamental purpose for it's customers. Why is Microsoft pushing an unfinished product that takes care of these essential tasks to their customers? Would Microsoft like the economy to collapse? That's not an overstatement.

I just found an email program called Mailbird. It's not free but it does have a free 3 day trial. The business version is a one time fee of $99. Their way of getting residuals is charging $20/yr for updates... fair enough. I had all three of my email accts up and running in less than 15 minutes. Compare that to the time I've fought with Outlook just trying to get my 365 acct running, which is why I started searching for a solution other than GMail. So far in day two of testing, I'm impressed. All accounts set up...check, simple and clean interface... check, a SYNC button to force a check on the email server... check, Emails getting flagged as read on the email servers after reading them in client...check, customizable...check. Every single item that I've been submitting feedback for, just works in this 3rd party solution

Unless something goes sideways with this software before my trial is up, it looks like I've found my new email client. It's infuriating to think about the 100s of HOURS I've spent submitting feedback, and requests, and searching for solutions for whatever Microsoft was pushing as a stable email client since 2015! It has been 8 years of frustration when I get NO resolution, or just stupid responses.

I will HAPPILY pay $99 for Mailbird so I NEVER have to submit feedback to MS about email, ever again! It looks as though I have found peace in my email world once and for all, and like so many other software solutions, it is not with Microsoft. I have already uninstalled outlook and windows mail from my PCs... that was actually a great feeling! Thank you to all who tried to help with constructive replies.

If you go into settings -> Email -> Message handling -> Mark as read to "Mark displayed items as read when the selection changes", this seems to fix the problem (at least for now!) for both Gmail and IMAP.

eM client is a good replacement too. It's free if you only add one or two accounts, and 70 for a license. You need a license for each computer (they have a small discount for multiple licenses). Not sure if they still do, but they used to give a $10 discount if you waited to buy until the trial ended. Updates are free (within the same version #) and they offer a lifetime upgrade license.

Mine lasted nearly 20 hours before it started doing it again. Sorry about the false hope.