How to Change Default Font in Outlook

Every Outlook user knows this moment: you open a new email, start typing, and the font is simply not yours. Learning how to change email font in outlook properly, once, ends the ritual of fixing it message by message.

The setting exists, but Outlook hides it in a different place on every platform, which is why set default font in outlook searches never die. This guide walks each version separately: classic desktop, the new Outlook, web, Mac and the mobile app.

One warning before the steps: Outlook keeps three separate font defaults, for new mail, for replies, and for plain text. Change only the first and your replies will keep betraying you. That single fact explains most failed attempts.

Put plainly, how to change default font in outlook emails for good is a three-part job. This guide does all three parts with you, on every platform Microsoft ships.

Which Outlook Do You Have?

Microsoft ships several Outlooks at once, and change default font in outlook means a different corridor in each. Find yours in this table first; every section below matches one row.

Your Outlook	Where the Default Font Lives
Classic Outlook (Windows desktop)	File, Options, Mail, Stationery and Fonts
New Outlook (Windows)	Settings gear, Mail, Compose and reply
Outlook on the web / Microsoft 365	Settings, Mail, Compose and reply
Outlook for Mac	Outlook menu, Settings, Fonts
Outlook app (Android / iPhone)	No default font setting exists (see its section)

Not sure which Windows version you run? The new Outlook has a cleaner window with a settings gear at the top right and no File menu leading to Options. The classic one has the full ribbon and the File tab.

Change Default Font in Outlook Classic (Windows Desktop App)

This is how to change default font in outlook classic, which is also how to change default font in outlook desktop app on Windows 11: the desktop route has not moved in years, and the operating system changes none of the clicks.

1. Click File, then Options, then the Mail tab.
2. Click Stationery and Fonts, then open the Personal Stationery tab.
3. Under New mail messages, click Font and choose your font, size and colour.
4. Repeat under Replying or forwarding messages, then under plain text messages.
5. Click OK on both dialogs. New messages now open in your font.

That is the complete answer to how to change my default font in outlook on a Windows PC: three Font buttons, set deliberately, because each governs a different kind of writing you do every day.

The third setting deserves its sentence: it controls how plain text messages look on your screen when you read and compose them. It does not change what the sender sent; it changes the face you read it in.

The New Outlook for Windows

The new Outlook simplified everything into one panel. For how to change default font in outlook windows 11 users who were switched to the new app, open the settings gear at the top right, choose Mail, then Compose and reply.

There you find a single default font and size for composing, applied to new messages and replies together. Set it once and the composer obeys everywhere in that app, with no stationery dialog at all.

The trade-off is control: the new app has no separate plain text reading font and far fewer stationery options. If you live on those, the classic app above remains the power tool.

Outlook on the Web and Microsoft 365

For how to change default font in outlook web, the path mirrors the new app: sign in, open the settings gear, choose Mail, then Compose and reply, and set the default font and size under Message format.

And how to change default font in outlook 365? There is nothing separate to learn. Microsoft 365 is the subscription, not another program: its subscribers use the classic desktop app, the new Outlook, or the web, and each follows its own section above.

Web settings are stored with your account, so they follow you between browsers and computers. Desktop classic settings live on that PC, which is why your work machine and home machine can disagree.

Replies and Forwards: The Setting Everyone Misses

Most how to change default font in outlook when replying questions come from one oversight: in classic Outlook, replies have their own Font button, and changing new mail never touches it. Your new messages look perfect while every reply leaks the old font.

The fix is ten seconds: reopen Stationery and Fonts and set the middle button, Replying or forwarding messages, to match. While there, notice the colour choice too; replies traditionally pick a different colour to separate your words from the quoted text.

The same logic governs how to change default font in outlook when sending email of any kind: new, reply and forward are three doors, and each needs its own key turned.

Outlook for Mac

For how to change default font in outlook mac, open the Outlook menu, choose Settings (older versions call it Preferences), and click Fonts. The panel lists the same family of defaults: new mail, replies and forwards, and plain text.

Set each one, close the panel, and compose a test message to confirm. Mac and Windows settings do not sync with each other, so a mixed household of devices needs the change made twice.

Mac readers on the new Outlook interface will find the fonts panel in the same Settings window; Microsoft kept the name Fonts, which makes it the easiest platform to search.

The Outlook App on Phones: An Honest Answer

Now the section nobody enjoys: how to change default font in outlook app on Android or iPhone has no solution, because the mobile app offers no default font setting at all. There is no hidden menu; we checked the places it would live.

What you can do in the app is format a single message while composing, using its formatting bar for bold, italics and similar touches. The moment you start the next message, the app returns to its own standard look.

Practical advice: set your defaults on desktop or web for the mail you send from a keyboard, and accept the app’s plain style for phone mail. (Mobile minimalism is a pattern; it is the same reason bolding a Facebook post needs a generator, not a button.)

Make the Font Size Permanent Too

The ribbon tempts everyone: select text, bump the size, send. That change dies with the message. The question how to change font size in outlook email permanently is really asking where the durable setting lives, and it lives in the same dialogs.

Every Font button in this guide sets size alongside face and colour. Choose the size there once, in all three places, and every future message starts at that size, in classic, new, web and Mac alike.

Two neighbours to know: your signature carries its own font choices in the Signatures editor, and the message list’s text size follows your system display settings, not these dialogs.

The Same Sentence in Eight Fonts

Choosing a default is easier when you can see the candidates side by side. Each line below renders in the real font on your device where available, so what you see is honestly what your recipients get.

One restraint matters more than taste: your default only renders on machines that have the font. Choose an exotic face and half your recipients see a fallback instead. The eight above are safe because they are everywhere.

What About “Outlook 2026”?

Searches for how to change default font in outlook 2026 deserve a straight answer: Microsoft sells no product with that name. Outlook ships inside Microsoft 365, which updates continuously, and in perpetual Office releases such as Office 2024.

So the phrase really means “the current Outlook”, and its font settings are the ones in this guide. If your window matches the new Outlook or the web, use those sections; the classic sections cover the rest.

Version names will keep changing; the structure will not. Three defaults on the desktop apps, one composing default in the new and web apps, none in the phone app. Learn the structure and every future version is a five-minute job.

When the New Default Will Not Stick

You set one button of three. The classic trap. If new mail obeys and replies do not, the middle Font button in Personal Stationery was never set. It is the cause behind most “it did not work” reports.

A theme is overriding you. In classic Outlook, a chosen theme or stationery can impose its own fonts over your defaults. Clear the theme in the same Personal Stationery tab and your Font buttons take charge again.

You changed the wrong app. Classic and new Outlook keep separate settings on the same PC. If the window you actually use did not change, you edited its sibling. The version table at the top settles which is which.

Workplace policy. On a company Microsoft 365 account, IT can lock fonts by policy so every employee’s mail matches the brand. If your settings revert after every restart, that is policy, not a fault, and only IT can lift it.

Plain text mail. Messages composed as plain text carry no font at all, by definition. If a particular correspondent’s mail looks unstyled, check the message format before blaming your defaults.

That is the whole craft: find your version’s corridor, set every default it offers, and let the ribbon go back to being a per-message tool. Your font, every email, without thinking about it again.