Clicking a hyperlink in a translated email sends a duplicate request (link fires twice)

Jaskirat Singh 0 Reputation points
2026-09-03T11:08:23.1666667+00:00

An HTML email contains standard <a href="..."> links styled as buttons (e.g., an "Approve" action link). When the email is read in its original language (Polish) and a link is clicked, exactly one request is sent, as expected. When the same email is translated to English via Outlook's built-in translation feature and a link is clicked, the link fires twice — two requests are sent to the target URL for a single user click.

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Receive/open an HTML email containing an anchor-tag link styled as a button, with target="_blank".
  2. Use Outlook's "Translate message" feature to translate the email (tested Polish → English).
  3. Click the button/link once.
  4. Observe server-side logs or browser tabs opened.

Expected result: One request/navigation per click.

Actual result: Two requests/navigations are triggered per click, with (from server logs) matching timestamps within milliseconds of each other, indicating a duplicate dispatch rather than two intentional clicks.

Impact: For links that perform a state-changing action on load (e.g., approval workflows), this causes the action to be processed twice, which can trigger duplicate downstream effects (e.g., duplicate notifications, duplicate approvals).

While this works fine on "gmail" even after translation.

Outlook | Windows | New Outlook for Windows | For home
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  1. Kai-H 26,135 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator
    2026-09-04T08:38:55.64+00:00

    Hi, Jaskirat Singh

    This appears to be an Outlook translation-rendering issue rather than a problem with the original HTML, especially since the same link sends only one request before translation and works correctly in Gmail. Outlook replaces the displayed message content when Translate message is used, which may be causing the translated link to be handled twice.

    Here are some suggestions you can try:

    As a temporary workaround, select Show original message before selecting any approval link. You can also test the message in Outlook on the web or classic Outlook to confirm whether the behavior is limited to new Outlook.

    Test after removing target="_blank" from the link. This may prevent a second navigation handler from opening another request.

    In new Outlook, select Help > Support > Report a problem and include the Outlook version, sample HTML, translation languages, exact time of the test, and sanitized server logs.

    Approval links should ideally open a confirmation page rather than perform the action immediately. The server should also reject repeated requests using a one-time token or idempotency check. This prevents duplicate processing even if a mail client or security scanner opens the URL more than once.

    Thank you for your patience in reading, I hope this information has been helpful to you. 

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