Last Updated: August, 4, 2026
ISSUE
Users report receiving an error when opening an encrypted email: "Sorry, we’re having trouble opening this item. This could be temporary, but if you see it again you might want to restart Outlook. Cannot read the item.”
This issue is currently impacting users on Outlook build 2606 (16.0.20131.20126) and above when accessing externally encrypted email messages.
STATUS: FIXED
The Outlook Team has fixed the issue. You might need to restart Outlook more than once for the fix to take effect in the app.
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See Also
Fixes or workarounds for recent issues in classic Outlook for Windows