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How to stop Outlook grouping emails into conversation threads
By default, Outlook bundles every email with the same subject into one expandable thread, so a reply from this morning can drag a two-week-old conversation back to the top of your inbox. If you'd rather see each email on its own line, in date order, you can turn the grouping off. Nothing is deleted or moved. This guide covers Outlook on the web and the new Outlook app, which share the same settings. Classic Outlook, Outlook for Mac and the mobile app are covered under Variations.
What you'll need: An outlook.com, hotmail.com or Microsoft 365 work or school account. A desktop or laptop browser, or the new Outlook app for Windows or Mac.
Open Outlook
Go to outlook.com (or outlook.office.com for a work or school account) and sign in, or open the new Outlook app. Make sure you're in Mail rather than Calendar — it's the envelope icon in the bar down the left-hand edge.
Open Settings
Click the gear icon near the top-right of the window. A Settings window opens over the top of your inbox.
Go to Mail, then Layout
In the left-hand column of the Settings window, click Mail. In the list that appears next to it, click Layout.
Find Message organization
Scroll down the Layout page to the section headed Message organization. It sits below the Focused Inbox section and has two options: Show email grouped by conversation, which is the default, and Show email as individual messages.
Select individual messages
Select Show email as individual messages. The extra choices that belonged to the grouped option — newest on top or bottom, and whether to show deleted items — disappear, because they no longer apply.
Save and close
Click Save at the bottom of the window, then close Settings with the X in the top-right corner. The expand arrows next to threaded emails are gone, and every message in the inbox now sits on its own line, newest first.
Variations
Click the View tab in the ribbon and untick Show as Conversations. A small box asks whether to apply the change to This folder or All mailboxes. Choose All mailboxes unless you want grouping to stay on elsewhere — picking This folder only changes the folder you're looking at, which is why people often find threads still appearing in Sent Items or a sub-folder.
Click the View menu in the menu bar at the top of the screen and click Conversations to remove its tick. The same toggle is on the View tab of the ribbon. On the older, legacy version of Outlook for Mac it sits on the Organize tab instead, labelled Conversations. The change applies to the folder you're in, so repeat it for any other folder where you still see threads.
Tap your profile picture or initials in the top-left corner, then tap the gear icon at the bottom of the panel to open Settings. Under Mail, tap Email Organization and turn off Group Emails by Conversation. On some Android versions the option is listed as Threading, with a switch labelled Organize by thread. The list regroups as soon as you go back to it.
Troubleshooting
In Outlook on the web and the new Outlook app, the setting covers the whole account, so check you changed the right account in the dropdown at the top of the Layout page. In classic Outlook and Outlook for Mac the setting is per folder: open the folder that's still grouping, go back to the View tab and untick Show as Conversations (Windows) or Conversations (Mac) again for that folder.
It's further down than Focused Inbox, so keep scrolling. If the Settings window is small, the section headings on the Layout page can run off the bottom without an obvious scrollbar — drag the window's edge to make it taller, or scroll with the mouse wheel while the pointer is over the page.
Conversation grouping is switched on and off per app. Turning it off in Outlook on the web or the new Outlook app doesn't change the Outlook app on your phone, or classic Outlook on another machine. Go through the matching Variation above on each device where you still see threads.
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