How do I create categories (as in Outlook) to organize contacts and notes in iphone 4s?
iPhone 4S
You can't do this in the phone. If you're syncing your contacts with Outlook, create the categories on Outlook and they will sync to the phone.
I have categories in Outlook but they did not come through with the sync. Is that a sync issue then?
What sort of categories?
For example: business, personal, family, medical, etc. that sort the contacts in various groups.
On the "Info" page of your phone in iTunes, make sure you enabled syncing contacts and notes (at the bottom under "Other").
I did that but after the sync the Notes appear as a list in chron order and Contacts appear in alpha order, with no trace of the categories.
You might have contact categories already enabled and on your phone without even knowing it, the iPhone calls them "groups."
The iPhone does not make contact groups immediately obvious and therefore they can be easy to overlook. If you're syncing your Outlook contacts, which you have organized into categories, open the Phone app and tap Contacts on the bottom bar.
On the top of the screen it will likely say "All Contacts" and below will be a listing of all your contacts. To the left of all contact, if you have groups enabled, will be a left pointing "back" button titled groups. Tapping that will lead you to a page that should, if you have contacts synced properly, display all of your grouped contacts.
Besides the major Groups, as above, look inside the contacts in a listing labeled "Notes."
Mail, calendar and reminders are synced continuously through a corporate Exchange server. On the iphone Groups lists Exchange as a group then my personal AOL e-mail as another group. Is there a way to redefine Group=Categories?
You didn't mention you use a corporate Exchange account. If you're trying to alter any entry on that account, you can't - only the corporate IT dept can. Don't know about AOL accounts. You can't equate Groups with categories.
I have this exact same problem, I have about 20 categories (Company) in my Outlook Contacts, with the categories subdivided by Division, for my business contacts (meaning about 50 categories). With nearly 1000 contacts, this make trying to find a particular friend or business contact painstaking as there are so many contacts to sift through. Grouping by Exchange server or Gmail does little to help the situation. The way they are grouped in Outlook makes it so easy as I can scroll by Company, then division of that company and finally name, makes it much easier for business contacts when you sometimes can't remember a persons name but know the company and or division/branch. I thought the IPhone 4/4s was supposed to be more business friendly?
I have seen posts where people advise creating different Outlook folders for each desired group but with so many that sounds painstaking, surely if the categories and groups exist in Outlook, the IPhone could pick that up and categorise the contacts by the same groups? The IPhone is far newer technology than Outlook.
Even the 3rd pary apps out there don't seem to help the situation.
Apple! Somebody! Help!
As a longtime PC and Microsoft Outlook user, I have meticulously maintained CATEGORIES for Outlook Calendars and Contacts. Because the same list of CATEGORIES are used for both Contacts and Contacts, I can search for or list anything in Outlook calendars and contacts by a particular CATEGORY (without having to set up separate folders to represent each category).
Before my iPhone 4, I used a BlackBerry. The BlackBerry seamlessly synced with Outlook, including the Outlook categories. With CATEGORIES included in the synchronization, I was able to use my BlackBerry to view only those contacts or appointments that fell into a given CATEGORY. This was a big deal to me then, and it still is, given the way I categorize daily events and people in my life. I don't really think I am the only one who partitions their life as such.
It seems that with using iTunes, I would need to create separate folders in Outlook in place of Categories, and then copy my contacts to each of those folders in order to comply with the iPhone structure. And I would need to manually duplicate the process for the Outlook calendars to accomplish the same task as I do with Outlook, and formally with BlackBerry. This obviously is not an option for me, as I maintain many, many categories - some of which are cross-referenced.
As much as I have come to appreciate my iPhone for its more non-business applications, I have really missed not having this filtering capability that can be used across functions (i.e. contacts and calendar).
This would, of course, necessitate that the iPhone contacts file and calendar file be linked with the same new CATEGORY file (or table), just as the iPhone email, texting function and contact files are linked.
This doesn't seem to be to be a stretch, and based on some of the forum comments I have seen, this would be a much appreciated improvement (or enhancement).
If I have set up a CATEGORY called "Victor," and want to search for any CALENDAR events, emails or Contacts for which I have assigned the category "Victor," I should be able to do an iPhone search on the category "Victor" to see all related entries.
Hi from France, did you find any solution to get your outlook pc categories to be recognized on mac using icloud ?
No, I did not. And in looking over what I wrote, I'm surprised anyone would take the time to really understand my issue. However, the issue still remains (sigh...)
I have the group listed under the group button but I don't see the group listed as individual contact. Isn't it suppose to show up there too?
Creating categories
