How to reduce spacing on left-side folder list? Outlook 2016

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I’ve just upgraded to Office 2016 – all OK in the main.

But in Outlook, the folder list on the LH side of the main window (has Favourites and my email folders) all seem to be double spaced and quite large text compared to the rest (which I have customised using the view settings).

Is there any way I can reduce the size of the spacing so I can see more folders? I can’t see any way to do it inside Outlook itself and there doesn’t seem to be a generic Windows setting for that.

cheers

Alan

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If you have Outlook set for touch mode that space between entries will be increased. Set for mouse mode and the space will be decreased.

Joe

--Joe

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Joe, thanks – I will check that – I’ll come back if I can’t find it.

Cheers

Alan

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OK found it, but it doesn’t make that much difference. Have a look at the two pictures. First one is mouse mode, second is touch. Even in mouse mode, the LH side seems double spaced compared to Office 2013.

I was hoping there was a setting I could use (like with rows and columns of the messages window).

Alan

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See this thread outlook 2013 – how to increase font size in folder pane / navigation pane?. Even though it is about Outlook 2013 it applies to 2016too.

Joe

--Joe

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Its not the font size that’s the issue, but the spacing between the lists of folders. I have a two screen desktop. I had Outlook 2016 on one screen and Outlook 2013 on the other – both are desktops running at 1920 x 1200. The difference in spacing was really obvious. Both had the same sized fonts but I could see more folders on the 2013 one.

It’s obvious that MS have done something with 2016 which is not fixable by us mortals. Which is a shame. The Kludge of changing the font size is not really the right way to fix it – especially on my small laptop with 2560 x 1400 screen where a small font size soon becomes unreasonable {rant over}

Alan

Alan

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Its not the font size that’s the issue, but the spacing between the lists of folders. I have a two screen desktop. I had Outlook 2016 on one screen and Outlook 2013 on the other – both are desktops running at 1920 x 1200. The difference in spacing was really obvious. Both had the same sized fonts but I could see more folders on the 2013 one.

It’s obvious that MS have done something with 2016 which is not fixable by us mortals. Which is a shame. The Kludge of changing the font size is not really the right way to fix it – especially on my small laptop with 2560 x 1400 screen where a small font size soon becomes unreasonable {rant over}

I don’t suppose you ever worked out if there was a way to change this, did you? I’ve found exactly the same problem – upgraded from Outlook 2013 to 2016 and the only noticeable difference so far is that I get fewer folders on the screen in the folder view, which is annoying! My initial thought was that I had the touch setting enabled, but that just makes the problem worse!

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Did you read the thread? The line spacing is proportional to the font size. So, changing the font size changes the spacing.

Joe

--Joe

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Did you read the thread? The line spacing is proportional to the font size. So, changing the font size changes the spacing.

Joe

New to forum, so hope not to have missed something. Just upgraded from Outlook 2010 to 2013 and spent hours attempting to “fix” this issue, without success.

It appears (at least in Outlook 2013) there are two problems. First, I could find no way to change the Folder List font size. Maybe it’s buried in a registry setting somewhere, or maybe it’s just using some font from another Windows 10 setting. But I sure haven’t found a way to make it smaller (which as Joe indicates might also serve to proportionally reduce line spacing).

Secondly, as the thread notes – spacing between lines is quite wide (may be even worse on 2016 – as above poster seemed happy with 2013, which is much wider than 2010 / 2007). So back to the basic question — Is there some way to reduce the pixel spacing??

Third – yes, putting the system in Tablet mode makes the situation even WORSE, but even in smaller spaced Mouse mode, spacing is still much larger than my previous version of Outlook.

It’s really a pain, since working with an expanded (or even partially expanded) Folder list – I now have to scroll several pages to locate a particular folder. All these problems (lack of simple and easy visual configuration options) are probably tied to concessions required for running Outlook on Tablets with their grossly poor pointing device resolution – ie: fat fingers – but it’s really too bad so many previously available configuration options and visual queues have apparently been eliminated. Outlook 2013 looks just plain ugly – but I suppose that’s in the eye of the beholder, and a topic for a different forum.

….. Fred

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@Fred930,

See the second post in the linked article. It contains a link which is supposed to be another article with instructions on changing the font.

Joe

--Joe

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