Can no longer use Categories for email addresses

It appears that you are experiencing an issue with assigning categories to email addresses in Outlook for Mac. Based on the information provided, the ability to assign color categories is not available for IMAP email accounts in Outlook 2016 and later versions. If your email account is showing as an IMAP account in the Categories section, it may be due to a misconfiguration or a limitation of the software.

To resolve this issue, you might consider the following steps:

1. Verify Account Type: Double-check that your email account is indeed set up as a POP account in Outlook. You can do this by going to Tools > Accounts and confirming the account type.
2. Re-add the Account: If the account is correctly set as POP but still shows as IMAP in Categories, try removing the account and re-adding it to see if this resolves the issue.
3. Check for Updates: Ensure that your Outlook for Mac is fully updated, as updates can sometimes resolve bugs or issues.
4. Use POP Instead of IMAP: If you need to use categories, consider using a POP account instead of an IMAP account, as POP accounts do support assigning color categories.

If the problem persists, you may want to consult Microsoft support for further assistance.

References:

• You can't assign color categories for IMAP accounts in Outlook 2016

Hi Hugh,

Thank you for posting, I am here to help. I’m Sorry you are having this problem. Outlook misdetect account types temporarily, which seems to be what’s happening here since it’s showing your POP account as IMAP.

Please try this steps see if this will help.

Check Account Settings:

Go to Tools then select Accounts in Outlook.

Check and Verify that your account type is listed correctly as POP. If it still shows IMAP, remove and re-add the account carefully as POP (back up your emails first).

If above steps did not help try this.

Reset Categories Cache:

Close Outlook and Navigate to ~/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/Outlook/Outlook 15 Profiles/Main Profile/Data (the path may vary slightly depending on your version).

Look for files related to categories (like Category List). Move them to the desktop temporarily.

Restart Outlook. It will rebuild the category list. You can then re-add your custom categories.

Let me know how this goes. Looking forward to helping you out.  If you need more help please feel free to let me know. If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer".

Best regards,

Jansher

Hi Hugh,

Thank you for responding, Please kindly try to use safe mode to check the result.

Select Apple menu then Shut Down from your Mac’s menu bar and wait 10 seconds. After your Mac has turned off and after restarting your Mac hit and hold the Shift key. When you see the login window, release the Shift key then click on Macintosh HD. Then proceed to login to the user’s account then check again if problem still the same