NVDA and e-mails in outlook

[Justin Coffin]

Hi all,

I'm noticing something strange when viewing e-mails in outlook. I got an e-mail from United Airlines that I wanted to view, and it has a lot of links and other content. I'm wanting to read this message, but when I try to use arrow keys to navigate the message content, NVDA seems to be extremely slow. Any ideas as to why this is going on?

Thanks.

[mrsi...@sasktel.net]

I am noticing this also.

I am using m s office outlook 2021 and nvda 25.xx, the version released last week.

I notice this especially in email from retail outlets with several links.

No, I do not experience this on web pages, just in email from retailers.

Monte Single

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[Jason J.G. White]

On 6/11/25 06:36, 'Justin Coffin' via NVDA Screen Reader Discussion wrote:
> but when I try to use arrow keys to navigate the message content, NVDA seems to be extremely slow. Any ideas as to why this is going on?

If you're using Outlook Classic, it is indeed slow to read complex HTML
content with a screen reader. This is true irrespective of whether
you're using JAWS or NVDA, in my experience, so it's presumably an
Outlook issue.

If you switch to the new Microsoft Outlook for Windows, the problem goes
away. I would expect the problem to go away also if you switched to
Mozilla Thunderbird. Both the new Outlook and Thunderbird are built on
Web technologies, so you have all the accessibility advantages of using
a real Web browser engine rather than the classic Outlook renderer.

[Cyrille BOUGOT]

Hello

It's indeed a common NVDA issue occurring with e-mails such as newsletters or commercial messages. I have not recently re-tested but a few time ago, Jaws was behaving well while NVDA was very slow, on the same of message.

Even NV Access communication, I think it was In process, is a quite significant example message causing this slowness.

You should check though that:

* Outlook uses UIA and not the legacy object model; the legacy object model is slower

* no add-on causes this slowness; so test without add-on

It seems to me though that restarting NVDA was improving the reactivity, i.e. the issue becomes more significant after some time using NVDA, so it's a bit difficult to isolate a cause for this. Or maybe there are various causes for the same visible effect...

Anyway, this issue is unfortunately a real and significant drawback of NVDA (and / or maybe its add-ons) for many people.

Cheers,

Cyrille

[Mike B]

Howdy,

 

There's a setting that helps this behavior in Outlook quick settings, but I don't know how to access these settings with NVDA.  With JAWS I press, Insert + V,  then i navigate to,

Use Virtual Cursor for ReadOnly Messages, and check this box.

 

But, pressing, Insert + V, with NVDA doesn't open the Outlook quick settings.  If you can find this setting another way maybe it'll help with NVDA as well.

Take care.  Mike.  Sent from my iBarstool.  Go Rams!

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[Sean Randall]

Hi Mike 

these are JAWS quick settings, not outlook. :) Hence you not being able to find it without JAWS running! 

Thanks

Sean

On 6 Nov 2025, at 19:24, Mike B <mb69...@fastmail.com> wrote:



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[David Griffith]

 

I tried to follow the advice

You should check though that:

* Outlook uses UIA and not the legacy object model; the legacy object model is slower

 

But I could find no setting relating to this in Outlook Classic.

I therefore asked Google Gemini for help, and it said the following.

There is no direct, user-facing setting within Classic Outlook itself to switch between UIA and the legacy object model for its core interface. Outlook, like most modern Windows applications, implements UIA to expose its user interface elements for accessibility and automation.

 

It went on to say a lot more but essentially it said that it was not a user defined setting but one that only the vendor of any software could adjust.

Specifically

Developer and Vendor Responsibility: The implementation of UIA is the responsibility of Microsoft, the developer of Outlook. They ensure that the UI elements in Classic Outlook expose the necessary UIA properties

 

So, it seems that you cannot check this setting but maybe I am missing something?

David Griffith

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[joseph....@gmail.com]

Hi,

Internally, Outlook (classic0 uses Word components to display email messages. This means the UIA versus old object model approach depends on how NVDA is told to use the internal Word module within Outlook.

Cheers,

Joseph

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[Cyrille BOUGOT]

Hi David

It's not an Outlook parameter, it's an NVDA one. If you asked Gemini for an Outlook parameter, no surprise that it found nothing interesting...

If you use Windows 11 and Office version 16.0.15000 or higher, NVDA by default uses UIA for Outlook and Word documents. If you want to check:

* Go to NVDA settings, Advanced category

* Check "I understand that changing these settings may cause NVDA to function incorrectly." checkbox

* Tab to "Use UI Automation to access Microsoft Word document controls" and check its value

* When you're done, press escape to quit this dialog without saving changes.

If the value is "Where suitable" (or "Default(Where suitable)"), NVDA will use UIA for Word/Outlook documents if you run Windows 11 and a recent Office versions as explained above.

If you run Windows 10 or an older Office version, you may try UIA setting this parameter on "Always", but you may encounter other undesirable effects since UIA for Word/Outlook documents is not fully supported on older Office versions and on Windows 10 or lower.

Cheers,

Cyrille