How to Mark All Emails as Read in Outlook

Mark All Unread as Read Using Outlook’s Native Features

Outlook can mark every message in a folder as read in a few clicks, on the web, in Outlook for Windows, and in Outlook for Mac. The steps differ slightly between versions.

How to Mark All Emails as Read in Outlook Web Client

To label all messages as opened in the Outlook web client, you need to:

Go to: https://outlook.live.com/
Log in with your email address and password.
Select the folder you want to label as read.
Right-click the folder and choose Mark all as read.

Repeat these steps for any other folder you want to clear. To use the keyboard instead, click any message, press Ctrl+A (Command+A on a Mac) to select the whole list, and then select Mark as read.

How to Mark All Emails as Read in Outlook Desktop Client

To label all messages as opened in the Outlook desktop client, you need to:

Open the desktop client.
Right-click the folder you want to label as read.
Click Mark All as Read.

Prefer the keyboard? Click any message in the folder, press Ctrl+A to select everything, then press Ctrl+Q to mark it all as read (Ctrl+U marks messages as unread). Keep in mind that classic Outlook has no undo for Mark All as Read: if some messages should have stayed unread, you’ll need to mark them unread again one by one.

If you have many folders, then you should use a Search Folder to label everything as read in one go:

Windows (classic Outlook)

Open the desktop client.
Right-click on Search Folders and choose the New Search Folder option.

Right-click on Search Folders and choose the New Search Folder

Select Create a custom Search Folder and click Choose.

Name the new Search Folder and click Criteria.

Name the new Search Folder and click Criteria

Navigate to the More Choices tab.
Check the Only items that are box and choose the unread option.
Click OK to confirm.

Right-click the newly created Search Folder.
Click Mark All as Read.

Mac

Open Outlook for Mac and select the folder you want to clear.
Click any message and press Command+A to select every message in the folder.
Choose Mark Read. In legacy Outlook for Mac, the command is called Read/Unread.

Legacy Outlook for Mac is no longer available to Microsoft 365 subscribers, so these steps are written for the new Outlook for Mac.

Marking new messages as read by hand gets old quickly, and nobody wants to spend time on repetitive tasks. Fortunately, Outlook can mark new messages as read automatically — all you need to do is create one or more email rules.

As capable as Outlook rules are, their creation is far from pleasant. The creation wizard looks dated, and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of available options, which are displayed as long and potentially confusing lists. A single mistake can result in the wrong messages being marked as read and slipping your attention.

But you don’t need to rely solely on the native Outlook email rule creation wizard. As an Outlook user, you can make your life much easier by taking advantage of available third-party inbox organizers like Clean Email to create rules the smart way.

Mark All Unread as Read in Outlook More Efficiently Using Clean Email

Because Clean Email is designed to be efficient and accessible, it makes it much easier to automate inbox management than Outlook. Here are the few simple steps you need to follow to create an Outlook rule to mark all messages in a folder as read:

Go to: https://app.clean.email/
Sign in with your Outlook account.
Choose the Auto Clean tool.

Click the + icon to create a new rule.

Name the new rule and select the folder to which you want the rule to apply. You can also add additional conditions.
Choose the desired action to happen when the rule conditions are met (Mark Read).

(Optional) Apply the rule to existing messages.
Click Create Rule.

If you want to create additional rules to mark emails in other folders, then you can repeat sites 4 to 8. The Auto Clean page is also where you can manage your rules.

Sometimes it’s useful to mark emails as read without creating a rule, and Clean Email lets you do that as well, allowing you to mark your entire inbox or just emails from specific senders. You can even mark emails of a certain type, such as automated messages, GDPR notifications, or online shopping confirmations, thanks to a feature called Smart Folders:

Go to: https://app.clean.email/
Sign in with your Outlook account.
Select a Smart Folder in the left pane.
Click Select and Select All.
Click the Mark Read button.

While you’re at it, you can take advantage of the Keep Newest feature when having all emails of a certain type selected. This feature can make it so there’s never more than one message matching certain criteria in your inbox — perfect for managing newsletters and various other subscription emails.

FAQ

Do I need a license to mark all messages as read using Clean Email?

No, you don’t need a Clean Email license to label all messages as read thanks to its generous free trial.

Can I revert and mark a message as unread?

Yes, it’s possible to label opened messages as unread using Outlook’s native features and third-party inbox organizers like Clean Email. In fact, you can keep going back and forth as many times as you want.

Is it possible to mark as unread multiple emails?

Yes. Select the messages (Ctrl+A selects the whole folder), then choose Mark as unread. In classic Outlook for Windows, you can also press Ctrl+U.