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About this lesson
Keep your contacts organized by using Category colors.
Lesson versions
Multiple versions of this lesson are available, choose the appropriate version for you:
2016, 2019/365.
Quick reference
Contact Categories
Keep your contacts organized by using Category colors rather than Folders and Groups.
When to use
If you are a SmartPhone user, only the main Contacts folder is synced to your phone. A way to keep your contacts in one folder, but still grouped, is by applying categories to the contact files.
Instructions
Name your Categories:
- Home ribbon,
Categorize 
, All Categories 
and click “Rename” 
Note: This is the same Category list used for email and calendar categories.
Apply the Categories
- Select a contact, click Categorize , choose a topic or color.
View the Categories
It may help to watch the category groups build as you apply the color. First choose the LIST view:
- Home ribbon , Current View
, List 
Customize the List view
To change the header columns in the list view,
- Click the View ribbon
, click Add Columns 
, choose from the available columns on the left, add them to the right, and reorganize with the Move Up/Move Down buttons:
- 00:04 There is a yet another way to stay organized but stay in one folder, for
- 00:08 instance the contacts folders.
- 00:10 So if you use a smartphone, you know that your contacts is the only folder that's
- 00:14 going to sync to your smartphone.
- 00:16 So I would like to keep everyone actually in that folder but
- 00:19 I still want to separate them someway so we use Categories.
- 00:23 Now Categories are right up here.
- 00:24 It says categorize, they're green, red, orange, purple, but
- 00:28 you can rename them by going to the all categories list, clicking on one,
- 00:32 hitting the rename and then just typing a new name,.
- 00:35 So when we use Categories, for instance I've got the Be Friended here,
- 00:39 I've got this one categorized, but you can't tell.
- 00:41 If I double-click to open it now you can see the green category is on it, but
- 00:45 it's all in how you view your information.
- 00:48 So right up here a the top I have current view.
- 00:50 When I hit the drop-down arrow, I can view this by people, doesn't show a category,
- 00:55 how about business card?
- 00:56 How about regular card?
- 00:58 How about phone list?
- 00:59 I do like phone list, cuz it shows me a lot of context on one screen.
- 01:02 And finally, the last one, List, actually will show me it'll view by categories.
- 01:07 There's all the ones that are not in a category.
- 01:11 Here, this one is in a green category.
- 01:13 Well, if I want to have this same person in a second category instead of a second
- 01:19 folder then all I have to do, open it up, add another category to it, close it.
- 01:24 I guess Save and Close it and now I've got my red category of business and
- 01:28 my green category for personal.
- 01:31 So, in case one of these is updated in a folder, one folder, I have to make sure to
- 01:36 go to the other folder to update it when I've got them separated out and
- 01:38 copied to multiple folders.
- 01:40 Whereas categories,
- 01:41 I'm only dealing with one contact that I've categorized other places.
- 01:45 Okay, one more time.
- 01:46 I'm gonna categorize this one.
- 01:47 Put this into the green Personal Contacts.
- 01:50 Another reason to use categories is now on this category title, right here,
- 01:56 I can select that title, come up and hit email, and OK, and there
- 02:02 I have an email to everyone that happens to be in that category right there.
- 02:06 So it is yet another way to make quick use of or no use of distribution lists.
- 02:14 And this view is very customizable.
- 02:16 I can click and drag these titles around up here.
- 02:19 I can go to my View and Add Columns and
- 02:23 I can put new columns on this list over on the right-hand side.
- 02:26 You are completely customizable to anything you want
- 02:30 when you're in these views.
- 02:31 And yes, I do like this view again,
- 02:33 because I can see a lot of my contacts right here.
- 02:36 So the categories are just yet another way to organize instead of using folders.
- 02:41 But if you're a smartphone user,
- 02:44 you know one contacts file is all that you get to sync with your smartphone, so
- 02:48 this is just a way to trick it into behaving like folders, but using one file.
- 02:53 All right, thank you.
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