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5.4 Priorities

If you use Org mode extensively, you may end up with enough TODO items that it starts to make sense to prioritize them. Prioritizing can be done by placing a priority cookie into the headline of a TODO item right after the TODO keyword, like this:

*** TODO [#A] Write letter to Sam Fortune

By default, Org mode supports three priorities: β€˜A’, β€˜B’, and β€˜C’. β€˜A’ is the highest priority. An entry without a cookie is treated as equivalent if it had priority β€˜B’. Priorities make a difference only for sorting in the agenda (see Weekly/daily agenda). Outside the agenda, they have no inherent meaning to Org mode. The cookies are displayed with the face defined by the variable org-priority-faces, which can be customized.

You can also use numeric values for priorities, such as

*** TODO [#1] Write letter to Sam Fortune

When using numeric priorities, you need to set org-priority-highest, org-priority-lowest and org-priority-default to integers, which must all be strictly inferior to 65.

Priorities can be attached to any outline node; they do not need to be TODO items.

C-c , (org-priority)​

Set the priority of the current headline. The command prompts for a priority character β€˜A’, β€˜B’ or β€˜C’. When you press SPC instead, the priority cookie, if one is set, is removed from the headline. The priorities can also be changed β€œremotely" from the agenda buffer with the , command (see Agenda Commands).

S-UP (org-priority-up)​

S-DOWN (org-priority-down)​

Increase/decrease the priority of the current headline1. Note that these keys are also used to modify timestamps (see Creating Timestamps). See also Conflicts, for a discussion of the interaction with shift-selection.

You can change the range of allowed priorities by setting the variables org-priority-highest, org-priority-lowest, and org-priority-default. For an individual buffer, you may set these values (highest, lowest, default) like this (please make sure that the highest priority is earlier in the alphabet than the lowest priority):

#+PRIORITIES: A C B

Or, using numeric values:

#+PRIORITIES: 1 10 5

  1. See also the option org-priority-start-cycle-with-default.↩