Missing categories when transferring to Outlook on new machine
I got a new PC with Outlook 2010 on it. I copied the pst-file from my old machine running Outlook 2003 to the new one but now I’m missing all my categories in Outlook.
How do I get them to into Outlook 2010?
Actually, your categories are still there. Starting with Outlook 2007, the Master Category List is stored into the pst-file as opposed to previous version of Outlook which stored them in the registry.
Build the Master Category List
To build the new category list in Outlook 2007 or Outlook 2010, you can right click on the top of the mailbox and choose Properties. Here you’ll see a button called “Upgrade to Color Categories…”. When you press this button, Outlook will look through the entire mailbox for categories and when found, it will add them to the Master Category List.
Build the Master Category List by using the Upgrade to Color
Categories button if Outlook didn’t do it automatically.
Command line alternative
You can also start Outlook with the /remigratecategories switch to achieve the same result;
- Windows XP
Start-> Run;outlook.exe /remigratecategories - Windows Vista and Windows 7
Start-> type;outlook.exe /remigratecategories
Starting Outlook with the remigratecategories switch in Windows 7.
(note the space in the command above)
Note: For a list of other command line switches for Outlook see the guide; How to use command line switches
