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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.
Using New Outlook on Windows for personal email, calendar, and contact management
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
Not to be negative, but would not hold your breath...
Like many, this has been ongoing for 18 months, perhaps longer. MS seems unwilling to or is incapable of solving this issue. And many others.
I've had so many conversations with Microsoft Tech Support on this subject over the last 18 months that I've literally lost count, and gave up a few months ago.
Every call, dozens of them, would last upward of 30 minutes, and precisely none of them resulted in a solution. Many hours lost to this bug.
The last call was this:
"We're rolling out an update in June. This will allow you to delete categories."
I haven't seen any update so far.
Like your customer, I also have the problem where I've lost categories, recreated them, and suddenly the lost ones come back, so now I have nearly a thousand duplicate and triplicate categories, to the point where it's completely unusable.
I spent two years meticulously creating and maintaining a client/supplier database using categories, only to have Microsoft blow it apart in 24 hours.
I haven't seen or heard any fix since this opened in 2024. Has there been any update? I have a customer who has hundreds, maybe a thousand categories he uses for his business to keep track of paperwork but he keeps losing chunks of categories every few months or few times a year. He keeps recreating them but its hard to catch up ad find the missing ones.
He noticed it happens when a new devices logs in with the Outlook app like a new phone or adding it to a new Desktop PC version, but its been awhile since he added a device and it still happens randomly regardless. Hes been asking me for a few year for a fix but more of a nuisance and setback lately as it grows.
Is this issue when using CLASSIC Outlook or the New Outlook (which I hate because it lacks a lot of features we used to have). I noticed the NEW OUTLOOK permits the use of the categories and Follow up Features for flags that disappeared in CLASSIC OUTLOOK despite the fact that they existed for dozens of years.
What the heck, Microsoft? We're paying a lot of money for this program, so fix it already. If it worked before, why did you stop it? I don't want the new Outlook. I like the old one with all its features. And frankly, I don't know how to stop the AI features that you put on my machine. i don't need help to write an email. I don't want it popping up all the time. How do I stop it?
Thank you.
I realise I am late to the party but I have just realised that the categories option has disappeared from my desktop version of Outlook. I don't use categories at home that often so it may have disappeared a while back. I am using Microsoft Office Home and Business 2019. Interestingly, my work is using Microsoft Professional 2016 and it still has categories.
I can't re-create the categories. The function no longer exists. There is no button on the ribbon for categories.
Another interesting fact is that the categories function is still available with my hotmail email address, just not with my bigpond email address.
It would be nice if they could bring it back. 9 months seems a ridiculously long time for a fix.