Microsoft Outlook Window Not Appearing Fix

Martin Brinkmann
Jan 18, 2012
Updated • Nov 29, 2012
Microsoft Outlook, Tutorials
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Outlook is not my main email client and I never really used it that much. Still, I have it installed as a part of my Office 2010 installation, and I tend to use it sometimes to test a new plug-in or feature that I would like to write about. For the past month or so I have been experiencing a rather puzzling issue that I never bothered to look into until today.

Whenever I would start Outlook on my computer, it would launch minimized in the Windows taskbar. A left-click on the Outlook icon, which normally should display the window on the desktop, had no effect at all. A right-click and the selection of the task had not effect either. Last but not least, a left-click on the Outlook icon in the system tray area, or a right-click and the selection of Open Outlook did nothing either.

No matter what I did, I could not get the window to show up on my desktop.

After some playing around I discovered a solution to bring back the Microsoft Outlook window. Here is what I did:

Click on the start menu and locate Microsoft Outlook there. Right-click on the program and select Properties from the options. Locate the Run menu and select Maximized from the options. Please note that you need elevated rights to save the change. Windows will automatically display an authorization prompt when you click ok or apply in the menu.

Relaunch Outlook once you have completed the process and clicked on the ok button.

You should now see the Outlook window open in fullscreen on the desktop. This has fixed the issue only partially though. Once you minimize the window you will notice that you cannot open it up again. While you could now close Outlook to start it maximized whenever you need to access the program, you'd probably prefer a permanent fix.

With Outlook displayed in full screen on the Windows, right-click the Windows taskbar and select the Cascade Windows options from the right-click context menu.

Once you have done that, you have fixed your Outlook issue. To check that you can now open Outlook normally again do the following:

  • Close all running instances of the messaging client on your system.
  • Go to Start > Microsoft Outlook, right-click the entry and select Normal Window under run.
  • Start Outlook normally. If the window appears, you have fixed your issue.

Here is a video that walks you through all the necessary steps.

Hope this helps Outlook users who are experiencing the same issue.

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Comments

  1. JC said on October 12, 2020 at 2:14 pm
    Reply

    Awesome, this post solved the issue. Many thanks!

  2. anom1234 said on May 20, 2018 at 11:20 pm
    Reply

    Man, you are a fucking god. Thanks a lot, what an annoying bug!!

  3. Rochelle said on March 6, 2017 at 11:59 am
    Reply

    Thank you, this worked !!!!

  4. Anonymous said on February 15, 2017 at 5:24 pm
    Reply

    Great tip. Thank you!!!! If it helps, I had to use the Control Key and the arrow keys at the same time to bring my window back into view. Worked like a charm.

  5. Ziad Bitar said on January 9, 2017 at 2:00 am
    Reply

    This problem was faced by only one user logging to TS 2008 r2 using outlook 2010.The issue was resolved.

    Thanks.

  6. Michel H said on November 30, 2016 at 11:08 pm
    Reply

    Thank you so much. Solved!
    Considering you published this in 2012, incredible not been debugged by Microsoft.
    Thank you again. M

  7. Jari said on October 31, 2016 at 11:53 am
    Reply

    I had a similar issue with Outlook 2013 on Windows 10 and this helped me to fix it. Thank you very much!

  8. shawn said on September 9, 2016 at 10:25 am
    Reply

    It’s Worked for me, too
    thank you very much!

  9. Tracy said on September 1, 2016 at 4:48 pm
    Reply

    Worked for me, too – thank you!!!

  10. Oz said on July 22, 2016 at 3:20 pm
    Reply

    Great tip! Thanks!

  11. Christina said on January 20, 2016 at 6:14 pm
    Reply

    Thank you…don’t know why this happened but your instructions helped me fix it. Running Windows 10 and office pro 2007

  12. Fali said on January 20, 2016 at 4:19 pm
    Reply

    Thanks a lot. I was facing this issue from past 3 week. I tried everything but no resolution. The issue was happening intermittently and mainly when I was changing the display of screen ( as i use 2 monitors). The only option i had was to do system restore. But thanks to you.

    1. MIki said on January 10, 2019 at 11:54 am
      Reply

      I’ve been tried to sole this problem for 12hours. Your comment about changing the display of screen helped me a lot!! Thanks!!

  13. Coenig said on July 23, 2015 at 7:36 am
    Reply

    Thanks a lot for the article. Don’t know why it happenend, don’t know how it got fixed, but it was really annoying and now it works :-)

  14. Olu said on April 14, 2015 at 1:35 pm
    Reply

    Excellent post. This had me baffled even trying to accurately describe the problem. This fixed it for me.
    Thank you

  15. Simon said on March 24, 2015 at 11:36 pm
    Reply

    Yah…thanks Claude. I’ve been having the same problem and tried all the suggestions…your solution was the answer. It had resized itself to a 0/0 box. Cheers

  16. Faisal said on February 9, 2015 at 10:09 am
    Reply

    thanks a lot…. work like charm.. :-)

  17. garth said on November 7, 2014 at 7:13 pm
    Reply

    You are a god – thank you!

  18. Charles said on December 7, 2013 at 7:23 pm
    Reply

    Thank you so much, this started happening to me today and was causing big problems. You are a life saver, I hope I can help you in some way some day.

  19. Andrew said on October 26, 2013 at 7:06 am
    Reply

    This solved my Outlook problem, too. Thank you. :)

  20. Claud said on December 19, 2012 at 2:08 am
    Reply

    If this is the same bug that I’ve encountered, there may be another fix: (1) hover over open Outlook item in Taskbar, cursor up to hover over Outlook window item, and right-click; (2) this should give you Restore / Move / Size / Minimize / Maximize — choose Move or Size; (3) use your cursor keys, going arbitrarily N/S/E/W, to try to move or size the Outlook window back into view. Basically, the app behaves as though it were open in a 0x0 window, or at a location that’s offscreen, and this will frequently work to resize and/or move the window. Don’t forget to close while resized/moved, so that Outlook remembers the size/position for next time.

    1. Ivan X said on January 21, 2021 at 4:50 pm
      Reply

      Fantastic. Thank you. Size did the trick.

    2. Chad said on November 20, 2018 at 4:24 pm
      Reply

      Solved my issue! 6 years later and this is still problem…

    3. Lynda said on February 12, 2013 at 3:37 pm
      Reply

      THANK YOU Claude!!! I could get the main window to launch but could not get any other message window to show on the desktop. You are my hero!!!!

  21. Salaam said on September 24, 2012 at 9:52 pm
    Reply

    Awesome! This actually solved my problem… what a stupid bug.

  22. JMGG said on January 19, 2012 at 8:25 am
    Reply

    You said that Outlook isn’t your main email client, so which is your main one?

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on January 19, 2012 at 10:15 am
      Reply

      It is Mozilla Thunderbird.

    2. BalaC said on January 19, 2012 at 9:42 am
      Reply

      I think its thunderbird

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