Annoying "Reply, Reply All, Forward" buttons in Outlook 2013

Question

Is there any way to get rid of the annoying "Reply, Reply All, Forward" buttons that appear in the header section of the reading pane in Outlook 2013? These are fully redundant with the buttons in the Respond section of the Home tab, and they take up a lot of space.

Also, at the bottom of the email list, Outlook 2013 insists on displaying "There are more items in this folder on the server\nConnect to the server to view them," whether or not all the emails have been retrieved from the server (or you are connected to the server). Is there any way to make it just connect to the server and download the items rather than tell me about it?

Answer 1

As far as i can tell the ability to remove those buttons has been disabled in 2013. Per the MS message boards:

The ‘Hide header information’ was a known bug issue in Outlook 2010 and this option to hide has been removed in Outlook 2013 version.

As for getting rid of that message you can change the settings for how far back outlook downloads emails in the following settings:

File/Account Settings/Account Settings, selecting your email account and clicking 'Change'

Use the slider to change the download time frame.

Answer 2

You can customize the ribbon by right clicking on it and selecting "Customize the Ribbon." In the box on the right-hand side, you can select and remove the entire Respond group which contains the Reply, Reply to All and Forward functions. If you only want Reply and Forward, for example, you can create a customized New Group and add those commands from the window on the left-hand side. You can rename the New Group and place it on the Ribbon in the order you prefer.