---
id: set-messages-tab-preferences
title: Set Messages Tab Preferences
description: The Preferences menu in the Messages tab allows you to customize how messages are displayed.
slug: /help/docs/search/get-started-with-search/search-page/set-messages-tab-preferences/
canonical: https://www.sumologic.com/help/docs/search/get-started-with-search/search-page/set-messages-tab-preferences/
---

import useBaseUrl from '@docusaurus/useBaseUrl';

## Display Message Preferences

You can change how messages are displayed on the **Messages** tab.

To set Messages tab preferences, do the following:

1. In the **Messages** tab, click the Settings gear icon in the upper right.<br/><img src={useBaseUrl('img/search/get-started-search/search-page/gear-menu.png')} alt="Messages tab" style={{border: '1px solid gray'}} width="800" />
1. Click **Display Message Preferences** to open the **Message Display Preferences** window.<br/><img src={useBaseUrl('img/search/get-started-search/search-page/message-display-preferences.png')} alt="Message Display Preferences window" width="450"/>
1. You have the following options:
    * **Sort by.** You can order messages by most recent or oldest.
    * **View n messages per page**. You can set the number of messages per page to a value between 15 and 500.
    * **Expand each message.** You can increase the number of lines that are displayed for each message. By default, this option is set to 10.
    * **Show Metadata Fields.** When selected, metadata field names are displayed below each log message.<br/><img src={useBaseUrl('img/search/get-started-search/search-page/metadata-fields.png')} alt="Metadata fields in messages tab" style={{border: '1px solid gray'}} width="800" />
    * **Show URI-decoded format.** By default, UTF characters in JSON are automatically decoded. Toggle this off if you want to intentionally include these when viewing JSON log messages in the UI.
    * **Dictionary Term Highlighting.** When selected, the terms "error" and "exception" are displayed in red text.
    * **Recent Messages First / Oldest Messages First.** By default, **Recent Messages First** is selected, but if you'd prefer to view oldest log messages at the top of the Messages pane, select **Oldest Messages First**.
    * **View 25 messages per page.** The default is to show 25 log messages per **Page** in the **Messages** tab. You can set this at 15 to 500.
    * **Save as Default View.** Click to save your choices. They will apply to all new log search tabs you open.

## Export message fields

* **Export (Display Fields)/Export (All Fields).** To learn how to use the Export Results option, see [Export Search Results](/docs/search/get-started-with-search/search-basics/export-search-results.md).