Outlook 2013 lets you assign categories to stuff and customize said categories. The thing about categories is that they’re universal across Outlook, and can you assign each category to a keyboard combination. So, you can categorize email, calendar events, and notes with a couple quick key strokes.
How to automatically categorize calendar appointments in Outlook?
For many Outlook users, they tend to categorize their calendar appointments with different colors. For example, all the appointments with a word “training” in the subject line will be turned “Blue”, and all the appointments with words “Sales meeting” will be turned “Green”, and so on. It is painful to categorize them manually one by one. Fortunately, Outlook provides us with a rule of automatically categorizing calendar appointments. Please look at the following tutorial.
Office Tab - Enable Tabbed Editing and Browsing in Office, and Make Work Much Easier...
Kutools for Outlook - Brings 100 Powerful Advanced Features to Microsoft Outlook
- Auto CC/BCC by rules when sending email; Auto Forward Multiple Emails by rules; Auto Reply without exchange server, and more automatic features...
- BCC Warning - show message when you try to reply all if your mail address is in the BCC list; Remind When Missing Attachments, and more remind features...
- Reply (All) With All Attachments in the mail conversation; Reply Many Emails at once; Auto Add Greeting when reply; Auto Add Date&Time into subject...
- Attachment Tools: Auto Detach, Compress All, Rename All, Auto Save All... Quick Report, Count Selected Mails, Remove Duplicate Mails and Contacts...
- More than100 advanced features will solve most of your problems in Outlook2010-2019 and 365. Full features60-day free trial.
Auto categorize calendar appointments in Outlook
1. Shift to the Calendar view by clicking Calendar option.
2. After entering the Calendar view, please click View > View Settings, in Outlook 2010 and 2013.
In Outlook 2007, please click View > Current View > Customize current view. See screenshot:
Or you can right click on one appointment in your calendar, and then select Automatic Formatting from the right-clicking menu in Outlook 2007.
3. In the Advanced View Settings: Calendar dialog (Customize View: Day/Week/Month dialog in Outlook 2007), click Conditional Formatting button (Automatic Formatting in Outlook 2007).
4. In the following dialog, please click Add button to create a new rule. Type a name for the rule in the Name field. Choose a color for the rule in the Color drop-down list (here I choose the purple color). Then click Condition button. See screenshot:
5. In the Filter dialog, please type the word(s) that you want to search for categorizing in the Search for the word(s) field. Then select subject field only from the In: drop-down list and click OK.
6. Click OK twice to close the dialogs.
And your old appointments which contain the word “training” are categorized with purple at once. See screenshot:
From now on, when you create new appointments that include the word “training” in the subject field, the appointments will be automatically turned purple as well.
Kutools for Outlook - Brings 100 Advanced Features to Outlook, and Make Work Much Easier!
- Auto CC/BCC by rules when sending email; Auto Forward Multiple Emails by custom; Auto Reply without exchange server, and more automatic features...
- BCC Warning - show message when you try to reply all if your mail address is in the BCC list; Remind When Missing Attachments, and more remind features...
- Reply (All) With All Attachments in the mail conversation; Reply Many Emails in seconds; Auto Add Greeting when reply; Add Date into subject...
- Attachment Tools: Manage All Attachments in All Mails, Auto Detach, Compress All, Rename All, Save All... Quick Report, Count Selected Mails...
- Powerful Junk Emails by custom; Remove Duplicate Mails and Contacts... Enable you to do smarter, faster and better in Outlook.
or post as a guest, but your post won't be published automatically.
Loading comment... The comment will be refreshed after 00:00.
- This option isn't available in the Mac version 15.31 (170216). Can anyone explain how to do this on a Mac?
- To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.This is not categorization. It is just coloring the appointment based on the title.
if you search on the category 'training category' afterwards these appointments will not be included.- That's Correct. I missed the category too.
- To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.This instruction claims to be for assigning categories, but it is actually just assigning conditional formatting to assign colors, not actual categories. We are trying to automatically assign categories, which can be tracked and grouped and possibly seen in exports.
Is there documentation for assigning an existing [b]category[/b]?
Related Articles
![Accounts Accounts](/uploads/1/2/5/8/125859761/762036346.png)
- 1 Create Custom Calendar Labels in Outlook
- 2 Change the Colors of Each Appointment in Google Calendar
- 3 Save Custom Color in MS Excel 2007
- 4 Group Email Addresses on Microsoft Outlook
Two factors affect the color of your appointments in Outlook's Calendar component: which calendar they appear on and which category you've assigned them to. The category color always overrides the calendar color where applicable. You can modify the colors as required to suit your own company's needs, though calendars imported via IMAP don't support categories. There are nine calendar colors and 25 category colors to pick from, and how you use them is largely up to you.
1.Launch Outlook and select the 'Calendar' link on the navigation bar.
2.Double-click on 'My Calendars' to see the calendars associated with your account. To set up a new one, right-click somewhere in the existing calendar list and choose 'New Calendar.' Select a name and location and click 'OK.'
3.Right-click on any calendar entry in the list and choose 'Color'to change its color. Select 'Automatic' from the Color sub-menu to let Outlook choose complementary calendar colors for you or pick from one of the nine options.
4.Double-click anywhere inside the calendar workspace to create a new appointment, or click the 'New Appointment' button at the top of the navigation pane on the left. By default all new appointments take the color of the calendar they are created on.
5.Open the 'Categorize' drop-down menu to override the calendar color with a category color. Choose one of the options from the list or select 'All Categories' to modify the names and hues of the available categories.
6.Click 'Save & Close' and the appointment appears in a hue that follows the lead of the color of the calendar itself (though the shade may be slightly darker) or the category you've chosen.
7.Right-click on any appointment and select 'Categorize' to change the color of an appointment after it has been created. Again you can select 'All Categories' to make more detailed changes.
Tips
- The first time you use each of the categories, you'll be asked if you want to change the title or color used.
- To set the default color for all calendars or to make all of your calendars the same color, choose 'File' and 'Options,' then open the Calendar tab to find the relevant setting.
- Outlook provides plenty of flexibility when it comes to using calendar and category colors. You could use different calendars for different members of staff, for example, then assign each project to its own category. Alternatively you could use multiple calendars to represent multiple clients, and distinguish between different types of work using the category system.
Warning
- The steps listed above have been verified with Outlook 2013, the latest version of the software as of October 2013. If you are using a different edition of Outlook, some of the screens and features may vary.
References (2)
About the Author
An information technology journalist since 2002, David Nield writes about the Web, technology, hardware and software. He is an experienced editor, proofreader and copywriter for online publications such as CNET, TechRadar and Gizmodo. Nield holds a Bachelor of Arts in English literature and lives in Manchester, England.
Photo Credits
- Robert Giroux/Getty Images News/Getty Images
![Assign Colors To Accounts In Outlook Calendar For Mac Assign Colors To Accounts In Outlook Calendar For Mac](/uploads/1/2/5/8/125859761/168495967.png)
Choose Citation Style
Nield, David. 'How Do I Color Code Appointments in Outlook Calendar?' Small Business - Chron.com, http://smallbusiness.chron.com/color-code-appointments-outlook-calendar-74514.html. Accessed 25 November 2019.
Nield, David. (n.d.). How Do I Color Code Appointments in Outlook Calendar? Small Business - Chron.com. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/color-code-appointments-outlook-calendar-74514.html
Nield, David. 'How Do I Color Code Appointments in Outlook Calendar?' accessed November 25, 2019. http://smallbusiness.chron.com/color-code-appointments-outlook-calendar-74514.html
Note: Depending on which text editor you're pasting into, you might have to add the italics to the site name.