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Calendar Status Indicator - Colour Coding

Joseph Salvador 5 Reputation points
2026-06-01T04:47:19.5066667+00:00

Hi team,

Recent update for Mac has made Busy, Tentative & Working Elsewhere all the same colour making it difficult to manage attendance. Can this be fixed?

Version: Outlook for Mac | Version 16.109.1 (26051717)

Cheers,

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Outlook | MacOS | New Outlook for Mac | For business
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  1. Teddie-D 16,885 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator
    2026-06-01T07:18:14.85+00:00

    Hi Joseph Salvador 

    Thank you for bringing this to our attention. 

    We were able to reproduce the behavior on our end. Microsoft appears to have changed the calendar availability colors in recent versions of Outlook for Mac, which causes Busy, Tentative, and Working Elsewhere to appear much more similar than before. 

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    After updating to the latest build, the issue remains present.

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    However, rolling back to New Outlook for Mac version 16.108.3 (26050324) restores the previous, more distinguishable color scheme for these statuses.  
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    As a temporary workaround, you may consider reverting to version 16.108.3 (26050324) until a future update addresses this change. Previous Outlook for Mac builds can be downloaded here: Update history for Office for Mac - Office release notes | Microsoft Learn 

    Please note that this is a user-to-user support forum. Moderators, contributors including external Microsoft employees cannot directly intervene in Microsoft product features or access back-end systems. What we can do here is confirm the current behavior across different builds and environments based on our testing.

    For product changes or feature requests, the most effective channel is submitting feedback through the official Outlook · Community 

    Thank you for your patience and understanding. 

    Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.    

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  2. AI answer

    2026-06-01T04:47:30.0766667+00:00

    The behavior described matches a known issue where calendar “Show As” states share similar or confusing colors after an Outlook update. A comparable problem is documented for the Out of Office color indicator changing unexpectedly after an update.

    There is no setting in Outlook for Mac to independently customize the colors for Busy, Tentative, Working Elsewhere, etc. When an update changes these colors, it must be corrected by a product fix in a later build.

    Recommended actions:

    1. Ensure Outlook for Mac is fully updated to the latest available version for the channel in use (Microsoft 365 → Help → Check for Updates / Microsoft AutoUpdate).
    2. If the latest build does not restore distinct colors, report the issue directly from Outlook so it reaches the product team:
      • Outlook menu → Help → Feedback → “Report a Problem”, and include screenshots and the exact version (16.109.1 (26051717)).
    3. Monitor future Outlook for Mac release notes for fixes related to calendar color indicators or “Show As” status visualization.

    Because color mappings for status indicators are controlled by the client and not user-configurable, this cannot be fixed locally beyond updating to a build where the behavior is corrected.

    References:

    AI-generated content may be incorrect. Read our transparency notes for more information.

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