Always Send Plain Text to Certain Addresses in Outlook

Sending email to recipients who can't see HTML or rich formatting

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Updated on April 12, 2020

Microsoft Outlook makes it easy to always use plain text when emailing a contact who prefers plain text email over rich or HTML formatting. Simply set that preference in your address book, and Outlook automatically converts messages to that address to plain text no matter what format you use to compose the message.

Instructions in this article apply to Outlook for Microsoft 365 and Outlook 2019, 2016, 2013, 2010, and 2007.

To make sure Outlook always sends emails in plain text to certain addresses:

Go to Outlook's navigation pane and select People or Contacts (depending on the version of Outlook you use), or press Ctrl+3. In Outlook 2007, select Go > Contacts.
Go to Home > Current View > Card or Business Card.
Locate and double-click the desired contact.
Select the Email dropdown arrow and choose the email address you want to set to plain text.
In the upper-right corner, double-click the email address that should receive plain text messages.
In the Email Properties dialog box, select the Internet format dropdown arrow and choose Send Plain Text only.

If the Edit Business Card dialog box opens, see below for how to change the Windows Registry to access the Email Properties dialog box.
Select OK.
Close the contact window.

Force the Email Properties Dialog for Addresses in Outlook 2016 and Outlook 2013

To have Outlook always show the Email Properties dialog when you double-click a contact's email address:

Close Outlook.
In Windows, press Windows+R.
In the Run dialog box, type regedit.
Select OK.
If prompted by User Account Control, select Yes to allow this app to make changes.
For Outlook 2016, go to:
```
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\Contactcard
```
For Outlook 2013, go to:
```
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common\Contactcard
```
If the Contactcard key exists in the registry, go to step 12. If you do not see the Outlook version key in the registry, you'll need to create a new key.

For Outlook 2016, go to:
```
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common
```
For Outlook 2013, go to:
```
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common
```
Go to Edit and select New > Key.
Type Contactcard and press Enter.
Go to Edit and select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value.
In the Name column, type turnonlegacygaldialog and press Enter.
Double-click the turnonlegacygaldialog value.
In the Value data text box, enter 1.
Select OK.
Close the Registry Editor. You can now follow the instructions to set the sender to receive plain text emails.

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