How to Make Outlook Classic the Default Program for Email?

13/11/2025
Knowledge

How To

If you are having issues opening an email from a LEAP matter, please check the Windows default program for email.

To make Outlook Classic the default program for email, follow these steps:

Click on your computer's Search Bar (bottom-left corner of the screen).
Type Default Apps and press Enter.

The Default Apps Settings window will open.
In the "Set defaults for applications" field, type Outlook.
Select Outlook and not Outlook (new).

Apps > Default apps > Outlook window will open.
Click the .msg + Choose a default pop-out.
From the 'Suggested apps' select Outlook and not Outlook (new).
Click Set default.

When opening emails from LEAP, you may encounter errors such as the ones listed below. This issue often arises when the default application for email .msg files is set to Adobe Acrobat or Outlook (New) instead of being set to Outlook (Classic) or old Outlook. To fix this, make Outlook Classic the default program for email .msg files:

You double-click an email from a LEAP matter Correspondence window and nothing happens.
You cannot or are unable to open emails saved in LEAP.
Sorry, the file could not be opened. There was an error opening the file.
Sorry, the file could not be opened. The file's content type is not currently supported.
Adobe Acrobat Reader could not open the file because it is either not a supported file type or because the file has been damaged (for example, it was sent as an email attachment and wasn't correctly decoded).
Adobe Acrobat could not open 'Re-Email' because it is either not a supported file type or because the file has been damaged. To create an Adobe PDF document, go to the source application and print the document to Adobe PDF.

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You may require IT Administrator rights to perform these steps, and you can contact your IT to assist with the steps if necessary.

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LEAP has limited compatibility with New Outlook. You can save emails to a matter, remove emails from a matter, and change the matter the email is saved to.