New Outlook Exiting Emails Shortly After I Open Them

Hello @Christin Gagliano

This is such a confusing situation for you. I will describe your Outlook behavior to make sure we are on the same page:

• An email opens for a few seconds.
• Then Outlook jumps back to the inbox or shows “Select a message to start reading.”
• The opened email disappears from the message list temporarily.

I suggest that you try to reset the New Outlook app’s local state. Microsoft recommends this because it forces the app to rebuild its local configuration and cached data.

• Close New Outlook completely.
• Open Run (Win + R) or a command prompt.
• Run the command: olk.exe --clearLocalState
• Start New Outlook again.
• Sign back into your account when prompted.

This clears the corrupted local configuration file.

If you still need my assistance, please come back with screenshots or any additional details so I can review it again and see if there’s anything more I can help you with.  

Have a nice day!  

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The described behavior is not covered in the provided documentation for new Outlook. The available context only covers classic Outlook crashes, freezes, and startup issues, plus general troubleshooting and a specific “new Outlook has stopped working” case that is resolved by fully resetting the app.

From the context, the only directly applicable, supported action for new Outlook client-side corruption or odd behavior is to reset the local state of the new Outlook app so it can rebuild its configuration and data:

1. Close new Outlook.
2. Run the reset command for new Outlook’s local state:
   • Open a command prompt or Run dialog and execute:
     • olk.exe --clearLocalState
3. Start new Outlook again and sign back into the account when prompted.

This clears the local app state and forces new Outlook to reinitialize, which can resolve persistent client-side issues.

If the problem persists after resetting local state, use classic Outlook for Windows as a workaround while further support is obtained, as the context does not provide additional targeted fixes for this specific symptom.

References:

• Troubleshoot Outlook for Windows issues
• New Outlook has stopped working, Fails when starting after 30 to 60 seconds - Microsoft Q&A