Outlook 2007: Deleting color categories

How do you delete a color category in Outlook 2007? I’ve done what the instructions say but it doesn’t work. If I am in the Inbox view and I click on the Category icon on the toolbar, go to All Categories, click the categories I want to delete, click delete, click OK… instead of deleting the categories, it assigns them all to whichever email is highlighted in my Inbox.

If I open up any random email, and do the same procedure, Outlook removes the color from the category (rendering it white) but still assigns the category to the email.

Does that make sense?

What I want is to be able to delete all the colors I don’t need. In a perfect world, I’d end up with five categories: red, orange, yellow, green, and blue.

(Background: I liked Outlook 2003’s different colored flags and used them alot to help me keep straight which email belonged to which boss’s project. Now the flags only come in red and are tied to reminders, which isn’t always apt for what I’m trying to accomplish.)

Don’t check the ones you want to delete, just highlight them one at a time and click delete.

Warning: cussing ensuing —> goddamn mother fucking Microsoft. Of course, their instructions say “select” and the dialog box has boxes next to each category… so wouldn’t a reasonable person assume that select means check? I would never have thought to click on a category.

(It worked, BTW. And many thanks to you.)