Using Categories

Outlook Web App

Use Categories in the Outlook Web App to organize items such as your email messages and calendar appointments. You can apply multiple categories to the same item.

Creating a category
Modifying a category
Assigning a category to an item
Retrieving categorized items

Using a Desktop Application?

Creating a category

1. To create a category, select a message in your message list and click the Categories button in the ribbon.

2. Click Manage categories... This will open a window in which you can manage your existing categories.

3. Click + Add new category near the bottom of the window to create a new category.

4. Assign a name and colour to your category and click OK. Click OK again in the Manage categories window to finish.

Modifying a category

1. Click the Categories button in the ribbon and click Manage categories...

2. Here you can change the colour of the category by clicking the coloured box beside the category name, or delete a category by clicking the x at the right side of the category name.

3. Click OK when finished to save your changes.

Assigning a category to an item

1. Select the email that you would like to categorize and click the Categories button in the ribbon at the top of the inbox.

2. This will bring up a drop-down menu with all your categories in it. Select the category you would like to apply to the email.

3. A coloured square will appear on the right hand side of the email that has been categorized in the message list. You will also see the coloured square and the name of the category in the reading pane of that message.

Retrieving categorized items

1. To search for all the items that have a specific category assigned to them, type in the search bar 'category: [category name]'.

2. This will bring up all items that are categorized with that category in the module that you are searching within.

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