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).
Thank you :)
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.
Thank you so much, worked perfectly to solve this annoying bug...
Thanks this was really helpful
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.
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
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.
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
Thank you - worked for me