Why are categories not in the advanced filter section of search in the new Outlook?

Hi,
As before in other versions of Outlook, you can add different qualifiers in the search.
For instance if you wanted to search for categories "Urban Earth" and "Admin" your search will look like:

Category:"Urban Earth" AND Category:"Admin"

I always used a space before and after the AND, but I don't think this is necessary??

Easier would be: Microsoft implementing again a query builder into the web app and "new" version of Outlook.

Removing this functionality of having an easily accessible query builder is limiting my work. I ditched the folder hierarchy in my outlook some years ago as I have saved Search folders each containing multiple categories. With the new version of Outlook I have to manually make this search each time.
For now I stick with the "old" version of the desktop app until the functionality is there that I need, or most likely when the old version is no longer supported by my company.

1 step forwards, 2 steps back.

Was there ever a resolution to this? I am having the same problem. Categories do not appear when I search them, if I try the favourite method that was mentioned it will not let me combine. This is a MASSIVE inconvenience as I rid myself of folders a long time ago and went to just categories but with out the ability to search by category it takes me forever to find what I am looking for. If this is a bug it needs to be fixed ASAP as I am finding it makes outlook pretty much un-useable.

In the new outlook you can't search by a category in the advanced search filters. I can only click on a category once searching or add it to the favorites list. Will you be adding category to the advanced filters in search?

Hey, you can skip past my earlier post (this evening) at the bottom of this chain. I think I found a solution.

Obviously, if you make the category a Favorite, it will appear in the left navigation window of Outlook. Then, left-click on a category of your choosing. (Don't hold and drag; just click and let go). Then, left-click in the search field, and you will see that it inserts the label as a filter. -->

Last, just press "enter" on the keyboard. Your "hit" results will pop up!

Let me know, if you would, whether it works for you, too. I'd feel better knowing this wasn't my imagination. Lol.

Tom

I agree.

Typing in the mere name of the category (in the search field) does not truly filter for that category.

I tried this myself, using "Adobe Sign," since that is one of my own categories. Several hits came up, no doubt ... but only because they were from an email address that included those same words "Adobe Sign," or they had those words embedded in the text of the email itself. To be sure, some of those returns also included the "Adobe Sign" tag I had created, but it was pure happenstance. Significantly, the category label was not highlighted as a "hit" like the other places where "Adobe Sign" was marked brilliant yellow.

Said another way, the "Adobe Sign" category merely came along for the ride - surfacing in the generated results only because the same words appeared elsewhere in a given email.

Even the screen clippings in Kerry Chen's initial response (above) don't really prove that those search phrases, sc. "green category," "blue category," and "orange category," were true hits. I can see that she boxed them in red, but I don't think that alone makes her point. And it certainly does not resolve the question as to why there isn't a search field in the Advanced Search window that is simply labeled "Category," which would make all of this exercise moot and save a lot of hassle.

Tom

Thank you for that info. I am in the new Outlook and that is no longer an option in the new Outlook. I use a category called Today for things I need to make sure get completed today that I could not do when checking my email.