Configure Long Lines to Wrap Automatically in Outlook

Pick at which character Outlook will wrap sentences

Long lines can be hard to read in emails, so it's always proper email etiquette to break the lines of your messages to something between 65 and 70 characters. Microsoft Outlook has a useful setting to set the line wrap to whatever number is needed. Here's how to adjust the character number at which a line break occurs in Outlook.

Instructions in this article apply to Outlook for Microsoft 365, Outlook 2019, Outlook 2016, Outlook 2013, and Outlook 2010.

Web mail message page
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How to Wrap Long Lines Automatically in Outlook

When you wrap long lines of text, the Outlook email client automatically breaks sentences away from the current line to start on a new line. This shortens the length of all outgoing emails and is similar to narrowing the margins of the writing space.

  1. Open Outlook and go to the File menu.

    The File heading
  2. Select Options.

    The Outlook File tab with the Options heading highlighted
  3. In Outlook Options, select Mail.

    Outlook Options with Mail selected
  4. Scroll to Message format.

    Message Format is highlighted in Outlook.
  5. In Automatically wrap text at character, enter a number to indicate where you want Outlook to wrap text. Keep it between 65 and 70 characters.

    Message Format section with Wrap Text at Character box selected
  6. Select OK to apply the changes and close the window.

    The OK button

You may have to experiment with the number of characters to get your emails looking the way you want. If you need to change the number of characters, repeat the steps until you are satisfied.

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