A great feature of categories is the ability to add your own. This can come in handy in lots of situations, like tracking people and items related to certain projects.

 

To create your own category, select an item and bring up the categories window in one of the ways we discussed above. The sample window shown above will appear. You can add categories right in this window by typing in the top box and clicking Add to List. Once you’ve typed the name in the large white box and clicked add to list, Outlook will add it to the list of available categories and check it.

You can also click on the Master Category List button, which will bring up the screen pictured to the right. The first option is new category. Just type in the first text box, click Add, and your category will appear in the list!

 

You can also delete categories by selecting them in the list and clicking delete. You can delete any categories, including those that come preset with Outlook. (If you delete a category that already has items assigned, the items will still show that category but there will be also be a note that this category doesn’t appear on the master list. Of course, you won’t be able to add new items to that category.)

 

As you might have imagined, the reset button will reset the list of categories to the original master category list. This means that categories you have created will be deleted. Items that were assigned to these categories will be treated the same way we just talked about; they’ll retain that category but there will be a note there that this category no longer exists.

 

Once you’re done adding, deleting, or resetting categories, click the OK button to save your changes or click Cancel to discard them. This will bring up the main categories window; we’ll have to click OK again for our changes to be saved.