(Updated) Microsoft Defender for Office 365: Enhancing the quarantine email preview experience

Message Center ID: MC1166867
Microsoft Defender XDR
Stay Informed
Feature update User impact Admin impact
October 2025 November 2025 December 2025

Summary

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is updating its quarantine email preview to enhance clarity, consistency, and security. Changes include retiring plain text view, limiting URL hover previews, and removing some "Load external content" buttons. Rollout begins November 2025, completing by mid-December, with no required user configuration.

Details

Updated October 23, 2025: We have updated the timelines. Thank you for your patience. 

We’re improving the email preview experience in Microsoft Defender for Office 365 to provide a clearer, more consistent, and secure workflow. These updates are designed to reduce ambiguity, simplify interactions, and reinforce security protections—helping organizations confidently use this feature as part of their protection strategy.

When this will happen:

General Availability (Worldwide): Rollout will begin in early November 2025 (previously mid-October) and is expected to complete by mid-December 2025 (previously early November).

General Availability (GCC, GCCH, and DoD): Rollout will begin in mid-November 2025 (previously late October) and is expected to complete by mid-December 2025 (previously mid-November).

How this affects your organization:

Who is affected: Quarantine administrators Microsoft Defender for Office 365 as well as users with access to review and preview messages within quarantine.

The update is specifically for the preview capability within the quarantine experience. What will happen:

  • The update consists of three main parts:
    • Streamlined view options: The plain text view option will be retired to unify preview behaviors across Defender experiences.
    • Clearer handling of URLs: The hover-over preview for URLs will be limited to reinforce that links in quarantine preview are not clickable.
    • Simplified content loading: The “Load external content” button will be removed for some scenarios. Content will render in a secure, isolated environment.

Quarantine administrators and users will experience a simplified preview interface with clearer rendering and reduced visual cues for URL interactivity:

 user settings

What you can do to prepare:

  • Update any internal documentation that references the quarantine preview experience.
  • Communicate these changes to helpdesk and support teams to reduce confusion.
  • No configuration changes are required; the update will apply automatically.

Compliance considerations:

No compliance considerations identified, review as appropriate for your organization.

Change History

October 24, 2025 at 12:30 AM Updated
Title
Previous
Microsoft Defender for Office 365: Enhancing the quarantine email preview experience
New
(Updated) Microsoft Defender for Office 365: Enhancing the quarantine email preview experience
Summary
Previous
Microsoft Defender for Office 365 will enhance the quarantine email preview by retiring plain text view, limiting URL hover previews, and removing some "Load external content" buttons. Rollout starts mid-October 2025 globally, simplifying the interface without requiring configuration changes. Update documentation and inform support teams accordingly.
New
Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is updating its quarantine email preview to enhance clarity, consistency, and security. Changes include retiring plain text view, limiting URL hover previews, and removing some "Load external content" buttons. Rollout begins November 2025, completing by mid-December, with no required user configuration.
Last Updated Date
Previous
2025-10-06T23:15:02.487Z
New
2025-10-23T22:50:33.180Z
Tags
Previous
Feature update,User impact,Admin impact
New
Updated message,Feature update,User impact,Admin impact
Body Content
Previous

We’re improving the email preview experience in Microsoft Defender for Office 365 to provide a clearer, more consistent, and secure workflow. These updates are designed to reduce ambiguity, simplify interactions, and reinforce security protections—helping organizations confidently use this feature as part of their protection strategy.

When this will happen:

General Availability (Worldwide): Rollout will begin in mid-October 2025 and is expected to complete by early November 2025.

General Availability (GCC, GCCH, and DoD): Rollout will begin in late October 2025 and is expected to complete by mid-November 2025.

How this affects your organization:

Who is affected: Quarantine administrators Microsoft Defender for Office 365 as well as users with access to review and preview messages within quarantine.

The update is specifically for the preview capability within the quarantine experience. What will happen:

  • The update consists of three main parts:
    • Streamlined view options: The plain text view option will be retired to unify preview behaviors across Defender experiences.
    • Clearer handling of URLs: The hover-over preview for URLs will be limited to reinforce that links in quarantine preview are not clickable.
    • Simplified content loading: The “Load external content” button will be removed for some scenarios. Content will render in a secure, isolated environment.

Quarantine administrators and users will experience a simplified preview interface with clearer rendering and reduced visual cues for URL interactivity:

 user settings

What you can do to prepare:

  • Update any internal documentation that references the quarantine preview experience.
  • Communicate these changes to helpdesk and support teams to reduce confusion.
  • No configuration changes are required; the update will apply automatically.

Compliance considerations:

No compliance considerations identified, review as appropriate for your organization.

New

Updated October 23, 2025: We have updated the timelines. Thank you for your patience. 

We’re improving the email preview experience in Microsoft Defender for Office 365 to provide a clearer, more consistent, and secure workflow. These updates are designed to reduce ambiguity, simplify interactions, and reinforce security protections—helping organizations confidently use this feature as part of their protection strategy.

When this will happen:

General Availability (Worldwide): Rollout will begin in early November 2025 (previously mid-October) and is expected to complete by mid-December 2025 (previously early November).

General Availability (GCC, GCCH, and DoD): Rollout will begin in mid-November 2025 (previously late October) and is expected to complete by mid-December 2025 (previously mid-November).

How this affects your organization:

Who is affected: Quarantine administrators Microsoft Defender for Office 365 as well as users with access to review and preview messages within quarantine.

The update is specifically for the preview capability within the quarantine experience. What will happen:

  • The update consists of three main parts:
    • Streamlined view options: The plain text view option will be retired to unify preview behaviors across Defender experiences.
    • Clearer handling of URLs: The hover-over preview for URLs will be limited to reinforce that links in quarantine preview are not clickable.
    • Simplified content loading: The “Load external content” button will be removed for some scenarios. Content will render in a secure, isolated environment.

Quarantine administrators and users will experience a simplified preview interface with clearer rendering and reduced visual cues for URL interactivity:

 user settings

What you can do to prepare:

  • Update any internal documentation that references the quarantine preview experience.
  • Communicate these changes to helpdesk and support teams to reduce confusion.
  • No configuration changes are required; the update will apply automatically.

Compliance considerations:

No compliance considerations identified, review as appropriate for your organization.

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