Often you may want to search for emails in Outlook based on a specific category that they have been placed in.
The easiest way to do so is by clicking the Search bar along the top ribbon and then by typing the following:
category:="Blue category"
This particular example will retrieve all emails in your inbox that belong to a category called Blue category.
You can also use an OR statement to search for emails that belong to one of several categories:
category:="Blue category" OR ="Red category"
This particular example will retrieve all emails in your inbox that are from either of the following categories:
- Blue category
- Red category
The following example shows how to use this syntax in practice.
Example: Search for Emails by Category in Outlook
Suppose that you would like to retrieve all emails in your inbox that have been placed into a category called Blue category.
To do so, click the Search bar along the top ribbon in Outlook and then type the following formula:
category:="Blue category"
The following screenshot shows how to use this formula in practice:
Notice that the inbox is automatically filtered to only show the emails that belong to the Blue category.
We could also type the following formula into the Search bar to filter for emails that belong to either the Blue category OR the Red category:
category:="Blue category" OR ="Red category"
The following screenshot shows how to use this formula in practice:
We can see that the inbox is automatically filtered to only show emails that belong to the Blue category or the Red category.
You can use similar formulas to search for emails by category in your own Outlook inbox.
Related Tutorials
The following tutorials explain how to perform other common tasks in Outlook:
Outlook: How to Search for Multiple Keywords in Emails
Outlook: How to Search Unread Messages Only
Outlook: How to Search for Emails with Attachments
