How to Turn Conversation View On or Off in Outlook

Applies to: Microsoft 365 (classic Outlook desktop, new Outlook, Outlook on the web)
Article Type: How-To
Last Updated: 2026-07-29

Summary

Conversation view stacks every reply in an email thread under a single row in your message list. This article shows you how to switch it on or off in every version of Outlook, how to control which folders the change affects, and how to tune what a conversation includes so a message you are hunting for stops disappearing.

Prerequisites

• Outlook in any form — classic desktop, new Outlook, or Outlook on the web.
• No admin rights required. This is a personal view setting on your own mailbox.

Instructions

1. Turn Conversation View On or Off in Classic Outlook

The control sits on the ribbon, one tab away from wherever you are now.

1. Open Outlook and click the folder you want to change in the folder list down the left side — Inbox for most people.
2. Click the View tab on the ribbon at the top of the window.
3. Find the checkbox labelled Show as Conversations in the Messages group, at the left end of the ribbon.
4. Tick the box to group your mail into threads. Untick it to give every message its own row.
5. A dialog titled Microsoft Outlook appears asking where to apply the change. Click This folder or All mailboxes — Section 3 covers which to pick.
6. The message list redraws immediately. Grouped threads show a small triangle on the left edge of the row and a message count; ungrouped, every reply sits on its own line in date order.

Note: If Show as Conversations is greyed out, your message list is arranged by something other than date. On the View tab, open the Arrangement gallery and choose Date. The checkbox becomes available again.

2. Turn Conversation View On or Off in New Outlook and Outlook on the Web

New Outlook and Outlook on the web moved this setting off the ribbon and into the layout options.

1. Click the Settings gear icon in the top-right corner of the window. The Settings dialog opens over the mailbox.
2. Select Mail in the left column, then Layout in the second column.
3. Scroll down to the Message organization section.
4. Select Group messages by conversation to thread your mail, or Show each message separately to ungroup it. Some builds label the first option Group into conversations — the behaviour is identical.
5. Click Save at the bottom-right of the dialog. Recent builds apply the choice as you click and show no Save button at all.
6. Close the dialog. The message list behind it has already redrawn with the new grouping.

Note: This setting is account-wide in new Outlook and on the web. Unlike classic Outlook, there is no per-folder choice — the change lands on Inbox, Sent Items, and every other folder at once. Not sure which Outlook is on your screen? See Understanding Outlook Versions — Classic vs. New vs. Web.

3. Choose Whether the Setting Applies to One Folder or All Folders

Classic Outlook asks this question every time you tick or untick the box, and the answer catches people out.

1. Click the folder you want to change in the folder list.
2. On the View tab, tick or untick Show as Conversations.
3. In the Microsoft Outlook dialog that appears, choose one:
   • This folder — applies to the folder that was selected when you clicked, and nothing else.
   • All mailboxes — applies to every folder in every account in your Outlook profile, including shared mailboxes you have open.
4. Click a different folder, such as Sent Items, and look at the message list. If it is still grouped after you turned grouping off, you clicked This folder and the change did not travel.

Tip: Mixing the two is a legitimate setup, not a mistake. Grouping earns its keep in a busy Inbox where one topic runs for days. It earns nothing in Sent Items, where you already know who sent everything. Set Inbox on and Sent Items off with two runs through Step 3.

4. Change What a Conversation Includes with Conversation Settings

A thread can pull in messages from outside the folder you are looking at. This menu is where that is decided.

1. Click the View tab. Conversation Settings sits directly beside Show as Conversations in the Messages group.
2. Click Conversation Settings. A dropdown opens listing four options, each showing a tick mark when it is on.
3. Click any option to toggle it. The menu closes and the change applies at once, so reopen the menu for each one you want to change:
   • Show Messages from Other Folders — draws the thread's messages in from every folder, so your own replies out of Sent Items and anything you filed away appear inside the Inbox thread. This is why a message you know you sent turns up in your Inbox.
   • Show Senders Above the Subject — puts the participants' names on the top line of the row and demotes the subject to the second line.
   • Always Expand Selected Conversation — opens the full thread the moment you click it, rather than showing only the newest message until you click the triangle.
   • Use Classic Indented View — indents each reply under the message it answers, which makes a thread that forked into two branches readable.
4. Reopen Conversation Settings to confirm. The options you turned on now carry a tick mark.

Note: Conversation Settings is greyed out whenever Show as Conversations is unticked for the current folder. Turn grouping on first, then come back to this menu.

5. Use Clean Up Conversation to Delete Redundant Replies

Everything above is display only. Clean Up is different — it moves email to Deleted Items. Read this section before you use it.

1. Select any message in the thread you want to trim.
2. Go to the Home tab and click Clean Up in the Delete group.
3. Choose one of the three options in the dropdown:
   • Clean Up Conversation — the selected thread only.
   • Clean Up Folder — every thread in the folder you are viewing.
   • Clean Up Folder & Subfolders — that folder plus everything nested inside it.
4. A confirmation dialog appears. Click Clean Up.
5. Outlook moves every message whose full text is already quoted inside a later reply into Deleted Items. The thread collapses down to the messages carrying content that appears nowhere else.

Note: Clean Up deletes mail. It targets any reply whose entire body is repeated verbatim in a later message, and Outlook does not treat a message as redundant when it carries an attachment or edited text the later reply lacks. By default it also leaves unread, flagged, categorised, and digitally signed messages alone — confirm those exclusions under File > Options > Mail, in the Conversation Clean Up section, before running it across a whole folder. Full detail on the settings and what each exclusion protects is in How to Clean Up Email Conversations in Outlook.

6. Find a Message That Conversation View Has Hidden

Grouping never removes a message, but it can bury one. These four moves surface it.

1. Click the triangle on the left edge of the conversation row. The thread expands and lists every message it contains, newest at the top.
2. Turn on Always Expand Selected Conversation from Conversation Settings (Section 4) so threads open the moment you click them.
3. Check the date you are searching under. Conversation view dates a whole thread by its newest message, so a reply from three weeks ago sits under today's date if someone answered this morning. That single behaviour accounts for most "the email vanished" reports.
4. Search rather than scroll. Click the search box at the top of the window, type a sender name or an exact phrase, and press Enter. Search results always list individual messages and are never grouped, whatever your Conversation setting is.

Verification: Expand a thread you have replied to. If your own reply appears in the list, Show Messages from Other Folders is on and the thread is showing you everything, across every folder.

Troubleshooting

WARNING

Clean Up Conversation deletes email. Show as Conversations does not. Turning Conversation view off never removes a message — it ungroups the list and nothing more. If messages disappeared right after you used Clean Up, open Deleted Items and drag them back to the folder they came from.

Symptom / Error	Potential Cause	Solution
Show as Conversations is greyed out	List arranged by something other than date	On the View tab, open the Arrangement gallery and select Date. Conversation view runs only on a date-arranged list.
A message you sent appears in your Inbox	Show Messages from Other Folders is on	Turn it off in View > Conversation Settings (Section 4). The message stays in Sent Items either way.
Grouping changed in the Inbox but nowhere else	Change applied to This folder only	Repeat Section 1 and click All mailboxes in the confirmation dialog instead.
One thread splits into two or three conversations	Subject line was edited mid-thread	Outlook groups on the subject plus a hidden conversation ID. A reply sent with a changed subject starts a new thread. No message is lost — search by sender to see them together.
There is no Show as Conversations checkbox	You are in new Outlook or on the web	The setting moved to Settings > Mail > Layout > Message organization (Section 2).
Replies you needed disappeared after a cleanup	Clean Up moved redundant copies out	Open Deleted Items and move them back, then set the exclusions under File > Options > Mail in the Conversation Clean Up section.

Related Articles

• How to Clean Up Email Conversations in Outlook
• How to Create and Manage Outlook Folders
• How to Use Focused Inbox in Outlook
• How to Create Email Rules in Outlook
• Understanding Outlook Versions — Classic vs. New vs. Web

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