One complaint I hear every now and again is that colors won't show in the Categories column in Outlook. The colors do show in an opened message or in the reading pane, but not in the message list. This is a bug in all recent versions of Outlook and it's easily fixed.
This happens when you move the Categories column to the left of the From field, or more accurately, immediately to the right of a field that uses an icon. If the field on the left is a text field, the colors will show.
Resetting the view will fix it (because it will move the category field to the far right); if you want the Categories field to the left of From, you can change the field on the left to use text instead of an icon format and the color block will display once again.
For example, when the Reminder field is an icon, you'll see a bell in the column. When it's set to On/Off, you see the word On when a reminder is set.
To make this change, switch to the View tab, select View Settings then Format Columns. Select the field right before Categories and choose one of the text options (Yes/No, True/False, or On/Off).
Debbie McCarthy says
will the inbox display more than one color if the email is assigned to multiple categories
Diane Poremsky says
It will show up to 3 color swatches. If you assign more than 3 categories, you'll only see the last 3 assigned in the message list. The rest will be visible on the message when you open or preview it.
Cecile says
Thank you :)
Yogesh S Kulkarni says
You are a gem Diane. I was on the verge of pulling my hair because of this highly annoying bug. Googling was returning anything but your simple and no-nonsense solution. It was sheer wastage of time till I found this post by you. Thanks a ton for saving so many lives.
blablabla says
Thank you so much, worked perfectly to solve this annoying bug...
pawan says
Thanks this was really helpful
SharonW. says
As with others here, thank you. I also spent copious (and stupid) amounts of time trying to figure this categories issue out. This was super helpful.
Bob Mager says
Also, for some reason, the External lead word in the subject line directs the email to the OTHER tab folder, opposite of FOCUS emails. I happen to like this feature. But for some reason recently, it has stopped working and the FOCUS folder is receiving all the emails, both External and normal. I go in and select "send to OTHER for all future like emails" but it isn't working.
Bob
Diane Poremsky says
That happened to me around the end of the year. I had to send a bunch of bulk mail to the other tab. Sending to other is working here.. I asked Microsoft if there was an option to reset the focuses/other filter - and there isn't.
Bob Mager says
i notice that the "TO" field doesn't populate under the SENT emails folder. Sometimes it does, other times not so much. Can I fix this? Bob
Phil says
Thank you - worked for me
Ran says
Thanks a lot! This problem is just weird and stupid and bothered me for half an hour!
Rimous143 says
Thank you, It's work! This issue is so strange. Microsoft should stop to hire those people from the street.
Nichole Willey says
This did not fix my issue, I can see one color but can't see when it has two?
Diane Poremsky says
Did you move the categories to the left of the name field? How wide is the field?
Lilly says
Additional comment. This fix didn't work. I have an additional problem that might be related. My display font is very thin, pixelated, not dense is the best I can do with descriptors. I've gone so far as to reinstall office 365 and there is no improvement.
Diane Poremsky says
I don't think this is the affecting the categories - it sounds like maybe the display font is missing or is corrupt. Can you post a screenshot?
Lilly says
didn't work for me. The format column option is is dimmed in all instances. And categories in some views are gone.
Diane Poremsky says
Do you have the category field on the left?
Did you reset the view?
Peter says
Very helpful, thanks.
Marie Alm says
Sure enough. That worked like a charm. I clicked-and-dragged my Categories column to be btwn the From and the Subject. And Bingo! The color blocks appeared. Before that, the Categories was to the right of the Attachments column which is an icon. MS is so very Frustrating!! Thanks Diane for the excellent, easy to do/hard to find remedy!!
G B says
Beautiful, thanks for the fix, and the explanation. Very distressing when that happened, especially since those colors dictate the priority of the things I need to get done!
Katy says
Thankyou! easy fix for an annoying bug!
David says
Amazing the bugs that drive you nuts. Thanks for the simple fix. Would have never deduced that on my own.
Tomas says
Soooo happy with your advice.. Many many thanks!
Cathy D says
Thanks, this is very helpful.
John Pollock says
Thank you so very much. screen real estate is tight, and a single character color blob is way better than a long text field. Can't thank you enough!!!!!
Charlie Spencer says
Thanks! I did some experimenting and found you can position the 'Follow-up Flag' column to the left of Categories to display the colors. I don't use flags so there's no text value to clutter the row.
cat says
I solved it thanks to you!
ms should fix this. :)
Brett says
This is the strangest fix, but it does work. Thanks for sharing.
Pa De says
Thank you so much. This bug was making me threaten violence against my computer (even though the SW was to blame and PC is an innocent victim.)
I'm starting to think Microsoft wants me to get fired! First they take away reminders for meetings getting focus (and just quietly they blink at the bottom of the screen where nobody looks now) and then I couldn't even prioritize with any visual way to see what my priority was except by reading a bunch of stuff (colors are must faster!).
Diane Poremsky says
>> First they take away reminders for meetings getting focus
They are bringing it back in current builds of Outlook 2016.
Zack says
Is there a way to do this in reverse to allow the categories to be blank and allow the user to assign these manually by right click quick assign? This would be in outlook 2016.
Thanks
Diane Poremsky says
I'm not sure what you mean - the category field is normally blank until the user sets a category. Users can use the quick click setting or right click on the category field to choose a category.
Ricardo Saucedo says
Thanks for this tip, this was certainly useful :)