Color Coding your email is a great way to organize your Inbox.   You can assign a color to a particular category of emails, for instance, by sender, by topic, to do items, etc. This can help organize your Inbox and other folders to make messages easier to find at a glance.

NOTE:  this option is not available for Outlook for Mac (Legacy)

 

Outlook for Windows (Classic)

From the Inbox list:

  1. Click View
  2. Click Change View
  3. Select Manage Views
  4. Select <current view settings>
  5. Click Modify
  6. Click Conditional Formatting
  7. Click Add
  8. Give the condition a name (e.g., From John Doe)
  9. Click Font
  10. Select the Font and Color for this sender
  11. Click OK.
  12. Click Condition
  13. Click the From button and select the person from the Global Address List or your Contacts.
  14. Click From to add them to the From field.
  15. Click OK (4 times).
  16. Click Apply View

This will change all messages from that sender to the color that you chose.  

You can set this up for categories also.  For instance, if you have a category for "To Do" items that is Red, follow these steps:

  1. Follow steps 1-12 above.
  2. Then click the Advanced tab.
  3. Click the Field drop down box.
  4. Select Frequently used fields
  5. Choose Categories
  6. The Condition box should be contains.
  7. Type the name of your Category (e..g, To Do)
  8. Click Add to List
  9. Choose OK three times.
  10. Click Apply View
  11. Click OK.

 

Outlook for Windows (New), Outlook for Mac (New) or Outlook on the web (OWA)
  1. Select the message to categorize and click the Categorize icon

The category will show in the your message list with the specified color and text of the category

sample categoy on message

 

 

 

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