Here’s a great tip I thought I’d share with any of you Microsoft Outlook users out there. Outlook has an annoying default setting of not marking a mail item as read when viewing it, but instead, it requires that you switch to another mail item first.
This has been quite a pain and for me because I sort my email into folders when it’s received, and, although I may have read something, if it arrives, and I read it, then move it to another folder, it remains marked unread.
So here’s the fix for Outlook 2007 (I think it works for 2003 as well) to mark mail items read when they are viewed rather than after switching to another email item.
Go to Tools > Options > Other > Reading Pane and select the checkbox next to “Mark items as read when viewed in the Reading Pane”.
Problem solved.
Check the box "Mark items as read when viewed in the Reading Pane"
