Microsoft Outlook 2016 – Assign a Colour Category to email messages or contacts

Colour categories are a great way to get organized. Colour adds visibility to your Outlook items so you can sort and find what you need. Colour categories can be assigned to email messages in Outlook, and you can add contacts to colour categories.

 

Assign a colour category to a message:

A colour category must be in the colour category list before you can assign it. If a colour category isn’t listed, you can create a colour category and assign it to an item for the first time. You can also choose from several default colour categories and rename them to be more meaningful to you. Multiple colour categories can be assigned to a message, and you can change the colour associated with a category at any time.

To assign a colour category, do the following:

For a message in your Inbox or any message list -- Right-click the message, point to Categorize, and then click a colour category.

For an open message - In the Tags group, click Categorize, and then click a colour category.

  

To see more categories or to create a category:

In the Tags group on the ribbon, click Categorize, then click All Categories to open the Colour Categories dialog box.

To assign a colour category, select the check box next to the colour category. That’s also a quick way to assign multiple categories to an item.

Note:

The first time that you assign a default colour category to an item, you'll be prompted to rename the category.

You can also change the colour of the category and choose a keyboard shortcut.

Categories do not work for messages in an IMAP account.

Only the 10 most recently used colour categories appear on the Categorize menu. To see the rest, click All Categories on the Categorize menu.

If you want to make certain messages stand out even more, you can use conditional formatting to automatically change incoming message colours and fonts based on sender, subject, or recipients. You can also switch the background colour of Outlook to make it even easier to see certain items in your message list.