Please bring back the ability to select categories in meeting requests before responding!

Question

Previously in Outlook, you could select a meeting request and select a categorization for it so that when you accept it, it appears in your calendar with the correct colour/categorization. Now, it's a 2 step process where you need to accept the meeting first and then go to your calendar, hunt down the invite, and then select the category. This is extremely inefficient and disrupts my work flow. Why would you change that? Please bring it back!

Answer 1

Hi @Morgan,

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum.

I'm sincerely sorry for any troubles and conveniences that this issue may have caused you. However, although New Outlook used to lack this feature to categorize a meeting request directly compared to classic Outlook, this deficiency is no longer existing. I did do some testing in my current New Outlook (version 1.2026.303.100) and the option to categorize meeting request is available now. You can select a meeting request and select a categorization so it will appear in your calendar with the correct categorization/color.

• In New Outlook:

• In classic Outlook

Microsoft does aware of the need from user for more granular control in New Outlook compared to Classic Outlook. New Outlook is still under active development and Microsoft is listening and relying on user feedback for prioritizing features to provide better customer experience when using New Outlook. If you have any concern or want to request a feature lacking in New Outlook, I strongly recommend sharing your feedback directly with the Microsoft engineering team via Microsoft 365 Feedback Hub > Send Feedback and describe your suggestion in detail. The product team actively reviews customer suggestions to identify areas for improvement and prioritize future updates. Your input does play a vital role in shaping the future of Microsoft products.    

Note: As community moderators, I kindly ask for your understanding that my access to internal development details is limited. My primary role is to guide users toward the appropriate resources and support channels. While I may not have influence product design decisions and have limited access to internal development details, I'll continue doing my best to support you within the scope of my responsibilities.      

Hope the information may help. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please feel free to share them in the comments on this post so I can continue to support you.    

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation. I'm looking forward to your reply.

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Answer 2

This behavior change is not documented in the provided material as a bug or a configurable option, and no setting is described that restores the ability to apply a category directly on the meeting request before responding in New Outlook for Windows.

The available guidance around categories and calendar behavior in Outlook only confirms that:

• Category behavior and UI can change between Outlook versions and builds (for example, category shortcuts breaking and later being fixed, or category display being removed from certain views in Outlook for Mac).
• When such changes are intentional design changes, the documented path is to submit product feedback and feature requests.

Given the context, the only supported action is to submit feedback asking for this feature to be restored. Use the feedback mechanism described in the Outlook support articles to request bringing back categorization on meeting requests before accepting them. Microsoft uses this channel to prioritize changes and potential reintroductions of removed capabilities.

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References:

• Category shortcuts stopped working after installing Version 1901 (Build 11231.20130) update for Outlook for Windows
• Categories no longer appear in the sidebar of individual calendars in legacy Outlook for Mac
• Organize your contacts with color categories
• Outlook Desktop calendar Out of Office color indicator unexpectedly changed