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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, like this

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

By default, Org-mode supports three priorities: ‘`A`’, ‘`B`’, and ‘`C`’. ‘`A`’ is the highest priority. An entry without a cookie is treated just like priority ‘`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 can be highlighted with special faces by customizing the variable `org-priority-faces`.

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

`C-c ,`
  Set the priority of the current headline (`org-priority`). The command prompts for a priority character ‘`A`’, ‘`B`’ or ‘`C`’. When you press <SPC> instead, the priority cookie is removed from the headline. The priorities can also be changed “remotely” from the timeline and agenda buffer with the `,` command (see Agenda commands).
`S-<up> (``org-priority-up``)`
`S-<down> (``org-priority-down``)`
  Increase/decrease priority of 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-mode`.

You can change the range of allowed priorities by setting the variables `org-highest-priority`, `org-lowest-priority`, and `org-default-priority`. 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

#### Footnotes

[1] See also the option `org-priority-start-cycle-with-default`.