Yesterday I was asked if there was a way to temporarily sort emails by categories based on the way you want to see the categories ordered. While there’s not a way (that I know of) to create a “custom” sort order to your categories (I think you’re stuck with sorting in alphabetic order), you can create search folders that can be filtered for various content.
In your sidebar navigation in Outlook, go down to Search Folders and right-click on it. You will get the option to add a New Search Folder:
The New Search Folder dialog box gives you a number of ways to create filtered folders to capture just the emails that match certain criteria. In this case, scroll down to Organizing Mail and select Categorized mail. At the bottom of the dialog box, click the Choose button to customize your Category criteria:
In this dialog box, you can select one or more Categories to include in your new Search Folder. Once you’ve selected your options, click OK:
Voilà! You now have a search folder that only shows you emails with a specific Category:
One Minute Office Magic 