Share via

Apply a Category

  • Article

 

Applies to: Office 365 for professionals and small businesses, Office 365 for enterprises, Microsoft Exchange, Live@edu

Categories help you organise items in your mailbox. Each category is assigned a colour and a name. You can apply a category to anything in your mailbox: a message, a calendar item, a contact or a task.

How do I apply a category?

You can apply a category to an item that's selected in list view or when the item is open.

To add a category from the List View:

To add a category to a message or task, click the category bar in the message or task list. Select the tick box next to each category you want to apply to the message or task, and then click away from the category list to save your changes.

To add a category to an open item:

To add a category to any message, calendar item, contact, or task in your mailbox, open the item, and then click Categories Categories on the toolbar. Select the tick box next to each category you want to apply, and then click away from the category list to save your changes.

How do I remove a category?

You can remove categories individually by opening the item you want to remove a category from, clicking Categories Categories, and clearing the tick boxes next to the categories you want to remove. You can also select Clear Categories to remove all categories from an item.

How do I create or delete categories?

You can create new categories and delete unwanted categories by opening the categories menu (right-click the category bar in the list view, or click the category icon on an open item) and selecting Manage Categories.

What else do I need to know?

  • If an item is part of a series, for example, a recurring task or meeting, categories can be applied only to the series, not to individual occurrences.

  • The default categories are named by their colours:

    • Blue

    • Green

    • Orange

    • Purple

    • Red

    • Yellow

  • You can't modify the names of categories. But you can change the colour of any category and add or delete categories by opening any item, clicking Categories, and selecting Manage Categories on the Categories menu.

What if I want to know more?