How to get Outlook/Hotmail to put the ">" character in email replys

April 7, 2014 6:18 PM

How the heck do you get outlook.com (previously hotmail.com) to preface the text of emails that you're replying to with a ">" in the first column? This is a simple ass feature that makes email conversations a heck of a lot easier but how do you turn it on?
posted by storybored to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

I'll be following this thread - I haven't seen that feature since Eudora...
posted by Dragonness at 7:14 PM on April 7, 2014

Does Outlook.com have an option to send emails in plain-text only (as opposed to HTML)? I think any modern mail client will do a vertical line on the left margin unless you are in plain-text mode.
posted by stopgap at 7:17 PM on April 7, 2014

Best answer: Yup. Outlook.com can send e-mails as plain-text, and then you get the > characters delineating the message to which you're replying. When you're writing a new e-mail, open up the Options menu (next to Save Draft), and choose Plain Text. The option appears to persist between e-mails, so you don't have to change the setting every time.
posted by retypepassword at 8:22 PM on April 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I should add that it only appears to work if you set the option before writing a reply. Changing the message format while writing the reply doesn't give you the >'s.
posted by retypepassword at 8:25 PM on April 7, 2014

Just chiming in to say - this feature sucks. It forces specific line-wrapping and and looks terrible if the next recipient has a narrower window, as the text won't properly reflow. This is probably why the feature is either dead and buried or hard to find.

The much better option is indented text for the original message, possibly with the vertical line in the left margin to visually indicate that it's a previous message. Doesn't break proper line wrapping.
posted by trivia genius at 6:17 AM on April 8, 2014 [1 favorite]