How to Solve the Issue of Missing Body of Emails or Text in Outlook

Microsoft Outlook is a popular email client used by millions worldwide for managing their business and personal emails and calendar items.

However, Outlook users may occasionally encounter issues with the email client, such as the body of emails or text being missing from their messages.

The “missing body of emails or text” problem in Outlook refers to a situation where the content of received emails appears blank or empty. While the email subject and sender’s details may be visible, the main text or message body is absent.

This problem can lead to confusion and disrupt productivity or lead to loss of sales or revenue due to missed opportunities. Therefore, it is critical to troubleshoot and resolve this issue.

In this comprehensive guide, you will learn the possible reasons that can trigger this issue and solutions to troubleshoot and fix it to ensure your Outlook emails start displaying correctly.

Common Causes of Missing Email Body or Text

There are several reasons and underlying issues that can lead to the “missing email body or text” issue in Outlook email clients.

• Incompatible or faulty add-ins
• Hardware graphics acceleration
• Incorrect or wrong font color settings
• Damaged, corrupt, or oversized Outlook PST data file
• Corrupt Outlook profile

Solutions to Fix Missing Email Body or Text

Follow the solutions given below to troubleshoot and resolve the missing email box or text issue in Outlook.

1. Update Outlook and Windows

Updating the Outlook app can help resolve any bug that may be causing the missing email body or text. Follow the steps given below to manually check and update Outlook:

• Open Outlook
• Go to File > Office Account > Update Options
• From the available options, choose Update Now. The Outlook will check for new updates. If available, download and install them.

• Once the latest updates are applied to Outlook, restart it and then check if the issue of missing body of emails or text is resolved.

If you still can’t see or view the email body or text, follow the next solution. 

2. Remove or Disable Add-ins

Incompatible or faulty add-ins, especially antivirus add-ins, can conflict with the Outlook functionality and cause email text to disappear. However, disabling or uninstalling these add-ins can resolve the issue.

The steps are as follows:

• Close Outlook
• Press Windows + R and type outlook.exe /safe
• Click OK or press the Enter key to launch Outlook in safe mode
• Once in Outlook safe mode, go to  File > Options and choose Add-ins
• At the bottom, click the Go button beside the Manage Add-ins option
• In the COM Add-Ins window, uncheck all add-ins’ checkboxes and click OK

• This will disable all the add-ins. After disabling the add-ins, close Outlook Safe Mode and restart Outlook normally.

If you can now see the email body and text clearly, then you must find and remove the culprit, i.e., the faulty add-in from Outlook. To do this,

• In Outlook, go to File > Options > Add-ins and then enable one add-in at a time.
• Restart Outlook and check if you can see the email body or not.
• Repeat the above two steps until you stop seeing the mail body or text.
• Then uninstall or remove the faulty add-in immediately to permanently fix the issue of missing email body or text issue in Outlook.

3. Check Font Color Settings

Incorrect font color settings, such as setting the font color to white for plain text emails, can lead to invisible text or missing email body or text. Follow the below steps to check and fix the issue:

• Open Outlook, go to File > Options, and then click on the Mail tab.
• Then find the Compose Messages section and click on Stationery and Fonts.

• In the Personal Stationery tab, find Composing and reading plain text messages and click on Font.

• Check and verify that the Font color is set to Automatic or Black. If it’s set to white, change it to Black, and click OK.

• After updating the font color, you can restart Outlook and check if the email text or body is visible.

4. Disable Hardware Graphics Acceleration

Hardware graphics acceleration can lead to rendering issues in Outlook and may sometimes result in missing text or email body. Follow these steps to verify and disable hardware acceleration in Outlook to fix the missing email body or text issue.

• Open Outlook and then go to the File > Options and click Advanced.
• Then go down to the Display section and check that the Disable hardware acceleration option is enabled. If not, select it and click OK.

• Then restart Outlook and check if the body of emails or text in Outlook emails is still missing.

5. Repair Damaged Outlook Data Files (.pst)

Missing email text may also result from corrupted oversized and inconsistent Outlook PST data files. To resolve this, you can use the Inbox Repair tool by Microsoft, also known as SCANPST.EXE. The steps are as follows:

• Press Windows + R and paste this C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office, and click OK or press the Enter key.
• Then open the Officexx or /root/Officexx (xx denotes the number based on the MS Office version installed on your system).

• Here, find and launch the SCANPST.EXE or Inbox Repair tool.
• Click Browse and choose the PST file. The default PST file is located in the %localappdata%/Microsoft/Outlook folder. Just copy and paste this path in the Run dialog box or address bar of File Explorer to open the location
• After choosing the PST file, click Start.

• In case errors and inconsistencies are found, you can click on the Repair button.
• The Inbox Repair tool will create a backup of the original PST file with the .bak extension. It will then try to repair the original PST file errors and inconsistencies. This process may take a while to complete based on the corruption level and PST file size.
• Once the PST file is repaired, you can launch Outlook and import it through the import/export wizard.

If the Inbox Repair tool or SCANPST stops responding, crashes, or does not repair the PST file, you can opt for an advanced Outlook PST repair tool, such as Stellar Repair for Outlook.

The software can repair severely corrupt/damaged, and/or encrypted PST files as large as 50GB or more with complete integrity and precision. Once the PST file is repaired, you can import it into any new or existing Outlook profile or account and view all the emails that you were not able to view due to missing email body or text.

Conclusion

The issue of missing email body or text in Outlook may occur due to various reasons as discussed in this blog. The blog also shares some effective solutions to troubleshoot and resolve the issue of missing email body or text.

You can follow these solutions and apply them in the given order to resolve the issue. If the SCANPST fails to repair your PST file, remember to use an advanced Outlook PST repair tool, such as Stellar Repair for Outlook to repair your PST files with complete integrity and precision.

Unlike SCANPST, the Stellar Repair for Outlook took can repair large, severely corrupt, and encrypted PST files and save the recovered emails in a new healthy PST file or export directly to Microsoft 365 or Live Exchange Server.

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About The Author

Shelly Bhardwaj

I am a Product Consultant and is associated with Stellar Data Recovery from last 8 years. I write about the latest technology tips and provide custom solutions related to Exchange Server, Office 365, MS Outlook, and many other Email Clients & different flavors of OS Servers. Read More