Over the weekend my Outlook categories have disappeared from the Categories list. How do I get them back?

Yes, can confirm that it's still not sorted.

I'm not sure how much more Microsoft are actually doing behind the scenes to resolve this.

I've had this issue since July, and have been in frequent contact with them.

Back in early September, we were notified that a fix had been pushed, and around 50% of our categories re-appeared.

However, in the months since then, there has been zero progress, although we're still in touch with Microsoft on a weekly basis.

As recently as this morning, they contacted me to send them another data dump.

One of the Engineer's vaguely suggested that it might be an issue with our individual account being corrupted and not synching correctly, hence why we're only seeing half the data.

If that's the case, then it could suggest why not everyone is having this issue, but it would also suggest that a significant number of us have corrupted accounts.

Either way, I don't think we can expect a fix anytime soon.

Might be time to start exploring a MacOS or Google alternative.

That's what we're currently doing.

This is what happened to me. My categories were still there in the old Outlook, BUT .... the old Outlook stopped right after the categories disappeared and no new messages were categorized. I do have the categories written down now, but Microsoft told me there was no way to reinstate categories or create new ones. Their only suggestion was to try favorites. Too exhausted and exasperated to do that now.

I had a user swap from original Outlook to New Outlook and 1/2 the categories are gone... flip back and they all return...

I've been in daily contact with Microsoft about this. While they're being very helpful and understanding on the phone, it's yet to result in an actual solution.

This is the latest email they sent me this morning:

Our specialist team after checking it over and reproducing it, seems to be an issue with the feature itself at present.

Our Specialist team has been checking this out with engineering, and I will update you once I hear anything from them.

Hi De Paul

In terms of 2. the categories are definitely no longer listed. I just have Blue Category, Green Category etc. However, the old categories seem to be present somewhere, just not with their coloured flags. You can see below for To be prioritised - it says its not in the Master Category List. However, if I add a New category in with the same name and give it a colour, then all the existing emails update correctly to use that flag.

We've had to add some of our categories back today, to try and keep on top of managing the mailbox. I just hope this won't happen again.

My Outlook version is Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise and it's Classic Outlook.

Thanks

Alison