Outlook keeps crashing! Here’s why and what you can do about it

August 5, 2022

By Kim Komando

You open up Microsoft Outlook, ready to look over your emails. You open an email with an attachment — and the app stops responding. If Outlook keeps crashing, here’s how to fix it.

Before diving into the solution, take a minute to ensure your inbox is safe. You must watch for homograph attacks if you use Outlook or Microsoft Office. Tap or click here to stop falling for this dangerous cybersecurity threat.

Tons of users have been complaining about Outlook crashing. After looking into it, Microsoft revealed the reason why this keeps happening. Put simply, it’s all thanks to a simple formatting issue.

Here’s the backstory

Emails with complex tables are the source of the problem, Microsoft reports. When you open an email with a built-in table, like an Uber receipt, Outlook can crash. You’ll also deal with this issue if you try to forward or reply to an email with a complex table.

You probably aren’t dealing with this problem if you have an older version of Microsoft Outlook. That’s because it mainly affects later versions. Here are the details:

• This issue affects Outlook users who are running Build 15330.20196.
• You’re affected if you use Current Channel Version 2206, Beta or Current Channel Preview.

On the bright side, Microsoft is working on a solution. It should fix the obnoxious crashes in its next Patch Tuesday update. On the downside, you’ll have to wait until then.

If Outlook keeps crashing and you can’t wait any longer, here’s a quick fix

Maybe you have an important email you need to see ASAP. If your inbox crashes every time you try to access it, you’re in trouble. Luckily, there’s a clever workaround.

Microsoft suggests downgrading your Outlook. If you revert to an earlier version, you don’t have to deal with the bugs. To use this trick, you need to channel your inner administrator and enter a few commands into the Command Prompt.

To open the Command Prompt, click the Start button. Then, enter cmd into the search bar. Once the Command Prompt app shows up, select Run as administrator.

Next, enter two commands:

• cd %programfiles%Common FilesMicrosoft SharedClickToRun
• officec2rclient.exe /update user updatetoversion=16.0.15225.20288

After each command, hit the Enter key on your keyboard. Copy and paste the two commands above into the black screen that looks like this:

Once you hit enter twice, exit out of the Command Prompt window. You won’t have to deal with constant crashes when you open Microsoft Outlook again.

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