Outlook Categories Not Appearing in Drop Down Menu

Question

This is the issue with Outlook categories drop down menu(in the picture). Problem is that not all categories are appearing. I'm assuming that drop down has a fix number of categories that it can display. I have 5 more categories that are not appearing in the drop down menu. I can select all categories and assign category to random mail and then that category will appear in drop down menu, but after some time it will be gone from it. Also I'm able to type category:"category name" is search box and it will find it and display mails with that category.

I would like for all categories to appear in drop down menu. Is there any way that you can change the number of items in it(to increase it).

Solution 1

1. Click in the search box
2. Then in the “Search” tab, click “More”
3. Choose “Categories”
4. You will see another box underneath the search box where you can have full list of your categories.

Screenshot:

Solution 2

This can be by design that only 15 categories display in the drop-down menu based on my test on both Outlook 2016 and Outlook 2013. As far as I know, currently, there is no such a built-in option in Outlook to change this. Mentioned in this article: Under section: FAQ: Color Categories

When you expand the Categories button, the flyout is ordered by the most recently used categories. If you click All Categories to open the Color Categories dialog, the list should be alphabetical.

Comments

[IGRACH]

Thanks for the feedback. Categories that I have in drop-down are far from ones that I recently used. Which is pretty annoying.

[IGRACH]

I need all categories.

[Admin]

The flyout is sadly NOT the "most recently used categories". I routinely have items appearing in there that I haven't used in weeks, while things I used just yesterday are pushed off the short list. Most annoying.