A more efficient way to access email and meeting information in Outlook with Narrator

Hi, Insiders! We are Doug Geoffray and Shireen Salma, Product Managers on the Office Accessibility team. Today, we’re excited to share an improvement we’ve made to the classic and new Outlook for Windows experience for people using Narrator. You will now have faster and easier access to essential email and meeting details—such as sender, recipients, subject line, and attachments—using simple keyboard shortcuts.

Get email and meeting details faster with Narrator​

Email details like who the message is from, when it was sent, or whether it includes attachments are essential for understanding context and taking action. However, if you use a screen reader, accessing this information often requires manual navigation through multiple UI elements. These elements can be time‑consuming and interrupt reading flow.

With this update, we’ve introduced Narrator scripting in Outlook to streamline how you access these details, enabling you to retrieve important email and meeting information instantly using quick keyboard commands.

How it works​

In your Outlook email​

With Narrator on, open an email in Outlook. To hear specific email properties announced on demand, use the following shortcut keys:

• Alt + 1 – From
• Alt + 2 – Date
• Alt + 3 – To
• Alt + 4 – Cc
• Alt + 5 – Subject
• Alt + 6 – Bcc
• Alt + 7 – Attachments

In your Outlook calendar​

With Narrator on, open a meeting from your Outlook calendar. To hear meeting details on demand, use these shortcut keys:

• Alt + 1 – From
• Alt + 2 – Date
• Alt + 3 – Required attendees
• Alt + 4 – Optional attendees
• Alt + 5 – Subject
• Alt + 6 – Bcc
• Alt + 7 – Attachments
• Alt + 8 – Meeting time
• Alt + 9 – Meeting Location

Tips and tricks​

• These shortcuts reduce unnecessary navigation and help maintain reading continuity, allowing you to quickly access the information you need without moving focus away from the message body.
• This improvement is especially helpful if you review large volumes of email or work at higher speech rates. Minimizing navigation steps can significantly improve efficiency and reduce cognitive load.

Availability​

This improved Narrator experience for reading email and meeting details is available in classic Outlook for Windows for Microsoft 365 subscribers running Version 2601 (Build 19725.20126) or later of Office, Version 1.2026.529.100 of new Outlook for Windows, and either Version 2601 (Build 28000.1764), Version 2502 (Build 26200.8116), or Version 2402 (Build 26100.8116) of Windows.

Features covered on this blog roll out over time to enable us to monitor quality and performance, so some preview features may not be available to you right away. Also note that features may be paused, adjusted, or removed as part of that process.

Feedback​

We’d love to hear how this experience works for you. Try using Narrator with these new shortcuts in Outlook and let us know what you think by selecting Help > Feedback.