Outlook Mobile (Android) doesn't immediately show the newest email when I open a very long thread

Question

Outlook Mobile (Android) doesn't immediately show the newest email when I open a very long thread

WindozeWoes 5

I use Outlook Mobile on my phone for work and yet consistently, when I get a new message on a very long email thread, and I click the thread, it opens the email at the end of the chain. The default behavior should be that it displays the newest message first, but I have to scroll all the way (sometimes through dozens of emails) to get to the newest.

Yes, I have tried changing the setting to have the newest messages at the top vs bottom and that changes nothing. I still have to scroll to the opposite end of the thread and it's very annoying. This is NOT what I'm talking about. Do NOT suggest changing the setting called Email Organization > Newest on top vs Oldest on top. That is not what I'm referring to and changing that does not change the behavior described above.

Any fixes or is this a known bug? Is Microsoft going to fix this?

PiSavat 0 Reputation points

2026-05-20T19:14:27.4233333+00:00

Chez moi aussi ça le fait et c'est vraiment très énervant de devoir remonter jusqu'en haut du mail à chaque fois et même quand je referme le mail et que je rouvre, il retourne directement à la fin du mail, et il faut paginer pour revenir à chaque fois au début du mail c'est très énervant

2 answers

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PiSavat 0 Reputation points

2026-05-20T19:14:27.4233333+00:00

Chez moi aussi ça le fait et c'est vraiment très énervant de devoir remonter jusqu'en haut du mail à chaque fois et même quand je referme le mail et que je rouvre, il retourne directement à la fin du mail, et il faut paginer pour revenir à chaque fois au début du mail c'est très énervant

Answer 1

This behavior is not documented as configurable in Outlook for Android. The available conversation-related settings only allow turning conversation view on or off and choosing whether the newest items appear at the top or bottom of the message list; they do not control which item in a long thread is opened or where the scroll position lands when opening the conversation.

In Outlook mobile, messages are grouped by conversation by default via the Group emails by conversation feature. This can be toggled in Settings → Mail → Email Organization. If conversation behavior is causing usability issues in long threads, the only supported workaround from the documented options is to disable conversation grouping so each message appears as an individual item in the list. That way, tapping the newest message opens it directly instead of opening the entire thread view.

There is no information in the provided documentation indicating a fix, roadmap item, or bug acknowledgment specific to the scroll position within long conversation threads on Outlook for Android.

References:

Answer 2

Anonymous

Hi WindozeWoes,

Based on my testing in a virtual environment, I observed that in long conversation threads, the newest messages are typically added toward the end of the conversation. When a thread becomes very large, this can sometimes cause the app to open the conversation without automatically scrolling to the most recent message, making it less immediately visible.

This appears to be related to how long conversations are rendered in the mobile experience, rather than an issue with mail delivery or synchronization.

In your situation, I would highly recommend sharing this feedback directly through the Microsoft Feedback Portal. Submitting feedback there helps ensure the product team is aware of the UI/UX impact and can consider potential improvements in future updates.

As a forum moderator, I don’t have the ability to influence or modify UI/UX design decisions. However, submitting feedback through the official Microsoft Feedback Portal is the best way to ensure these usability concerns are visible to the product team.

To help better understand the behavior and reproduce it more accurately, could you share approximately how many messages are included in the conversation thread where you’re seeing this? Having an estimate of the thread size would provide additional insight into how the UI behaves with very long conversations and whether there may be any patterns worth noting from a usability perspective.

Thank you for taking the time to report your experience. Please feel free to update this thread if you have any additional observations.

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

Anonymous

2026-03-23T04:12:32.5866667+00:00

Hi WindozeWoes,

Thank you for taking the time to submit your feedback through the Microsoft Feedback Portal. I’ve reviewed the feedback you shared here: Outlook for Android consistently fails to show the newest email when tapping on a very long (dozens of emails) thread

To better understand your scenario, I’d like to confirm a few details. When you have Email Organization set to “Newest on top”, does the behavior still occur where opening the conversation places you at the bottom of the thread instead of showing the most recent message?

In my testing within a virtual environment, when “Newest on top” is enabled, newly received messages within a conversation are displayed toward the top, and I don’t need to manually scroll to see the latest message. That’s why I’d like to better understand how this is behaving in your specific case.

Additionally, does this happen with all conversation threads, or only with certain very long conversations? Having an idea of whether this is consistent across all threads or limited to specific ones would help provide more insight into the behavior.

If the setting does not seem to work as expected in your environment, have you already tried removing and re‑adding the account, or uninstalling and reinstalling the Outlook mobile app to see if there is any change in behavior?

Thanks again for sharing your experience.
WindozeWoes 5 Reputation points

2026-03-23T04:56:17.1866667+00:00

You did not read my post carefully if your first response is to ask me about a setting I've already explicitly said I've tried both options for to no avail. I will not repeat that explanation again.

As for your second question, yes, I do notice this tends to happen more in long threads with lots of emails. It does not always happen in shorter conversations. Sometimes I'll open a shorter thread (say ten emails) and it'll instantly go to the newest one. This does seem to be a problem specifically with longer threads. I'm talking like probably (ballparking it, I haven't counted individual emails) 30-50 emails in a single thread (very common for many workplace environments).
Anonymous

2026-03-23T06:05:16.6433333+00:00

Hi WindozeWoes,

Thank you for the clarification and just to clarify from my side as well, I wasn’t questioning whether you had already tested the setting. When testing this behavior in a virtual environment, I needed a bit more context to compare scenarios, as conversation threads (around 10–15 messages) consistently behaved as expected in my testing, which is why I asked for additional detail.

Thanks again for taking the time to explain your experience.

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Outlook Mobile (Android) doesn't immediately show the newest email when I open a very long thread

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