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

Anonymous
2024-06-17T15:12:36+00:00

We use categories to group emails coming into a Support mailbox. We set up lots of different categories for different people, teams etc. Each has a different colour assigned to it. When emails come in we will assign the appropriate category. Over the weekend, the categories appear to have been wiped from our categories list i.e. we now have only some predefined ones like Blue Category, Green Category etc. For emails previously categorised, I can still see what category I applied but the coloured 'sticker' is missing and I can no longer select those categories. In addition, if I set up a new category now, whilst I can apply a new category, it's not subsequently available for me to select in the category list, plus the coloured 'sticker' does not appear. Any thoughts on how we might resolve please? I'm using Outlook via Office 365.

Outlook | Windows | New Outlook for Windows | For home

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  1. Anonymous
    2025-03-01T21:41:05+00:00

    I just had this happen to me and i almost had a heart attack. I am using the Desktop app. I clicked the box in the top right to revert back to the old out look, then switched it back to the new and every category came back!?

    To Dustin Cathey. What came back? I'm having this problem and I'm afraid to go to the new Outlook for fear I will lose even more after painstakingly recreating categories under each of my email accounts in Outlook. Can you please elaborate --- what you lost, how the new Outlook brought things back? I know new Outlook will restore all those reminder flags , etc. but what else does it do to change what's in your email boxes?

    Thanks

    DinaBiblin

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-11-25T15:59:47+00:00

    This is definitely not resolved. I lost my categories over the weekend for the very first time.

    I hope that Microsoft is still working on it!

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-11-09T03:17:58+00:00

    I had to reinstall outlook the app on my laptop and when I did, the Classic Outlook no longer has options to categorize emails or to put a remind flag on them. Only one option. To flag or not to flag. And it doesn't work while you're in the open email.

    This is a really broad mistake on Microsoft's part. I'm afraid to switch to the New Outlook as there seems to be a completely different upper ribbon on that, totally unlike what I've used for what, 30 years? Any explanation of what happened?

    Thank you all for your updates on contacting Microsoft. They have not solved anything for me.

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-10-17T18:13:34+00:00

    This happened to me two days ago. All my categories except for 3 reverted to default. I didn't do anyting in the catagories section. Pretty crazy looking at a white-washed calendar with a couple of sprinkles of color.

    I am running Outlook for Mac, Version 16.89.3 (24092813). The Calendar is in legacy mode (it's the only way I can get some of the company's subscribed calendars to show up right.)

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  5. Anonymous
    2024-10-02T03:43:37+00:00

    I.m having same issue.

    MS techs have been unhelpful so far.

    Will keep you updated

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