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

Dear Alison Whittick,

Good morning! Thank you for posting in the Microsoft Community. We will be happy to help you.

I'm sorry to hear that you're experiencing issues with your Outlook categories. One possible solution is to check if the categories are hidden.

1. Could you please provide some screenshots for further investigation?
2. Have tried going to the Home tab in Outlook > Click on the Categorize button in the Tags group > Select All Categories > Check if the categories you're looking for are listed? If they are, make sure they are not unchecked.
3. If the categories are not listed, it's possible that they were accidentally deleted. Unfortunately, there is no way to recover deleted categories in Outlook.

We look forward to hearing from you; please let me know and provide details such as the version of Outlook and screenshots, I will be happy to help you.

Please note that our initial response may not always resolve the issue immediately. However, with your help and more detailed information, we can work together to find a solution. Thank you for your help.

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

I am having this issue as well. Around the same time too actually... I can't pinpoint it to a date, but my categories are just gone now, within the week. I can't remember them all, so it would be nice to somehow get them back.

This has also happened to me recently as well

Our categories have vanished overnight.

We use the web version of outlook.

Like everyone else on this thread, this is having a major impact on our business. We have over 2,500 clients in our business address book, and used over 350 different categories based on job title, industry, seniority, location, etc, etc.

Oddly, when I view a contact, I can see the categories on their record, but the actual category list, and the ability categorise new contacts, has vanished.

To come into the office this morning and have all that info wiped out has caused us a system critical failure on an epic scale.

I need those categories back. Microsoft, are you listening? We need your help with this.

We have tried clearing cookies and cache, thinking maybe it was a localised issue with the Edge browser. That did not help.

When we click into Settings > General > Categories there are just thirteen left, out of over 350 carefully crafted and well thought out categories.

How are we supposed to recreate that? It'll take months.