What do I do when the body of messages is missing in Outlook for Windows?

Message bodies disappearing in Outlook is a known issue of two commonly used antivirus software products: AVG and NOD32.

  • A message arrives in the Exchange mailbox and is synchronized with Outlook.
  • The AVG or NOD32 add-in, which is added to Outlook automatically if you have the software installed, deletes the message body.
  • The message is then synchronized with the server, so it is also synchronized with OWA and with wireless devices.
To prevent this from happening, you need to remove the AVG or NOD32 add-in in Outlook. Other antivirus products may also lead to the same Outlook behavior.

NOTE: This solution will not restore message texts that have already been deleted. The add-in products mentioned here delete message bodies permanently. Also, there are other Outlook issues which could be caused by antivirus add-in products. For example, when sending messages, they can come back as undeliverable with no header.


Removing an add-in product from Outlook for Windows

  • Click on File > Options > Add-ins
  • In the Manage field, choose COM add-ins, and click Go
  • Highlight the AVG or NOD32 add-in, and click Remove
  • You may also check whether hardware graphics acceleration is disabled on your machine. 
    • To check this, open Outlook and navigate to File > Options > Advanced > Display.
    • Make sure that the "Disable hardware graphics acceleration" box is checked.
Creation date: 5/12/2020 10:04 PM      Updated: 5/12/2020 10:04 PM
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