Outlook 2019: How to Turn Off Focused Inbox (and Keep It Off)

To turn off Focused Inbox in Outlook 2019, open the View tab on the ribbon and click Show Focused Inbox so it’s no longer highlighted. The Focused and Other tabs disappear right away, and your inbox goes back to one list of messages.

That’s the official method Microsoft gives for classic Outlook (Focused Inbox for Outlook), and it hasn’t changed for Outlook 2016, 2019, 2021 or 2024 as of November 2026. The rest of this guide covers the cases where it isn’t that simple: the button is missing, you have more than one account, your phone still splits the inbox, or you’re an admin who wants it off for everyone.

Step-by-step: turn off Focused Inbox in Outlook 2019

1. Open Outlook 2019 on your Windows PC.
2. In the folder pane on the left, select the Inbox of the account you want to change. If you have several accounts, start with the one showing Focused and Other tabs.
3. Click the View tab on the ribbon.
4. Click Show Focused Inbox. When it’s on, the button looks highlighted (pressed in). One click turns it off.
5. Check the top of the message list. The Focused and Other tabs should be gone, usually replaced by All and Unread.

To turn it back on later, repeat the same steps and click Show Focused Inbox again.

If you have more than one account

If you have several mailboxes in Outlook 2019, open each inbox and check whether the Focused and Other tabs are still there. If they are, repeat the steps above with that inbox selected. Microsoft’s support page describes the toggle but doesn’t say clearly whether one click covers every account in your profile, so checking each inbox is the safest approach.

Why “Show Focused Inbox” might be missing

If you open the View tab and can’t find the button, one of these is usually the reason.

Your account type doesn’t support it

Microsoft’s What’s new in Outlook 2019 page says Focused Inbox needs a Microsoft Exchange or Microsoft 365 account. The main Focused Inbox support article also lists Outlook.com accounts as supported in Outlook for Windows.

That means IMAP and POP accounts, such as a Gmail account or an ISP mailbox added through IMAP, never get Focused Inbox in Outlook 2019. In a Microsoft Tech Community thread, community members said IMAP/POP support didn’t appear to be planned. That thread dates from 2017 and isn’t an official statement, but nothing in Microsoft’s current documentation suggests that has changed.

The upside: if you’re on IMAP or POP, there’s nothing to turn off. If you see an inbox split anyway, it’s probably coming from a rule or from another feature, not Focused Inbox.

You’re looking at a shared mailbox

Microsoft says Focused Inbox doesn’t work with shared mailboxes, and that this is by design. If you’re in a team mailbox like support@ or info@, you won’t see the toggle there.

Your organization manages the setting

For work accounts on Microsoft 365, admins can control Focused Inbox centrally (see the admin section below). If you have an Exchange account and still can’t find the option, your IT team is the right contact.

What turning it off actually does

Focused and Other are views of your inbox, not separate folders. Turning the feature off doesn’t delete or archive anything. Messages that were sitting in Other just show up in the main list again.

Keep Focused Inbox but fix the sorting

Many people turn Focused Inbox off because one important sender keeps landing in Other. If the split is mostly useful, you can train it instead. Microsoft describes the method in its support article:

1. Go to the Focused or Other tab and right-click the message you want to move.
2. Choose Move to Focused or Move to Other.
3. To apply this to all future mail from the same sender, choose Always Move to Focused (or Always Move to Other).

If you only want to move that one message, choose the plain Move to option instead of Always Move to.

Turning it off on your other Outlook apps

Outlook 2019 is often just one of several places you read the same mailbox. The settings live in different places in each app:

• Outlook on the web: Microsoft points to Settings > Mail > Layout, where you can choose not to sort messages into Focused and Other.
• New Outlook for Windows: this has its own settings, separate from the classic ribbon. Microsoft’s Focused Inbox article covers it alongside classic Outlook.
• Outlook mobile: most guides put the switch under the app’s Settings, in a Focused Inbox toggle for each account.

Whether a change in one app shows up in the others isn’t clearly documented by Microsoft, and third-party guides disagree. Some say it’s per device, others say it’s tied to the mailbox. In practice, if your phone still shows Focused and Other after you turn it off on the desktop, turn it off in the phone app too. Give it a few minutes, or restart the app, before you decide it hasn’t worked.

For admins: turning it off for users or the whole tenant

If you run Exchange Online for a team, you don’t have to walk everyone through the View tab.

• Single mailbox: the Set-FocusedInbox cmdlet enables or disables Focused Inbox for individual mailboxes. Microsoft notes it’s available only in the cloud-based service (Exchange Online), not on-premises Exchange. The documented pattern is Set-FocusedInbox -Identity <mailbox> -FocusedInboxOn $false.
• Whole organization: Microsoft’s Configure Focused Inbox for everyone in your organization article explains how to change the default for all users with PowerShell. The org-level control most commonly cited is Set-OrganizationConfig -FocusedInboxOn $false. Check the parameter against the current Set-OrganizationConfig documentation before you run it in production.

One important caveat from Microsoft: turning Focused Inbox off for the organization doesn’t stop users from turning it back on in their own Outlook clients. It changes the default, it doesn’t lock the setting.

Quick troubleshooting checklist

• Tabs are still there after clicking the button: make sure the right account’s inbox was selected, then click Show Focused Inbox again and watch whether the button’s highlight changes.
• No button at all: check the account type (IMAP and POP aren’t supported), and check you’re not in a shared mailbox.
• Mail still goes somewhere unexpected: look at Home > Rules for rules that move messages automatically. Rules work separately from Focused Inbox and keep running after you turn it off.
• Phone or web still split: change the setting in that app too.

Microsoft does move Outlook menus around from time to time, especially in new Outlook and Outlook on the web. The classic Outlook 2019 path above is stable as of November 2026, but if a menu name doesn’t match, Microsoft’s Focused Inbox support page is the place to check for current wording.