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Apple Working on Redesigned iCloud Mail for Web
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that's actually the first thing i disable on any mail client i use , i find threaded messages a horrible experience.
That's a function of Apple's half-baked push notifications in iCloud Mail.
Basically, because Apple Mail relies on push notifications when using any push-enabled account (iCloud, Fastmail, OS X Mail on your own Mac server, and maybe still Yahoo?), it will never actually fetch email in the background. It assumes that if it doesn't get a push notification, then there's no reason to update the mailbox.
Unfortunately, iCloud only sends push notifications when new messages are received. This means that your iCloud account in the iPhone/iPad Mail app only gets updated when either: (a) new mail comes in, or (b) you open the Mail app to refresh it manually.
Non-push accounts (pretty much everything else), can be set to poll on a 15-minute interval. This means that your badge counts will update every at least every 15 minutes. Accounts that support push never fetch email by default — you can set them to do use "Fetch" instead of "Push" in your iOS Mail settings, but then of course you'll lose all push notifications.
It's always boggled my mind that Apple doesn't seem to care about fixing this seemingly minor issue, especially when Fastmail worked with Apple to add full iOS push notifications to its service six years ago, and did it entirely right — when I read an email on my Mac, the badge count on my iPhone updates almost immediately. It's also not rocket science, as I managed to hack this capability onto my own OS X Server back in 2012.
Perhaps Apple is concerned about the server and network load of sending out a substantially higher number of push notifications. This seems unlikely, since the APNS system is used by thousands of other apps, and of course Fastmail has been doing it for email years. However, it may be a mail server side issue rather than a push notification issue, and to be fair, I'd imagine that iCloud has far more users than Fastmail does.
It seems to work okay, but it's generally pretty opaque. You sort of have to trust that it's working. I guess that's no different than Gmail, but based on some early experiences I never had much confidence in it. It may have improved since then in quality, but it's still a black box in terms of how it works.
Then again, I prefer services like Fastmail where I can at least see things like spam scores and adjust thresholds to fine tune the system. iCloud naturally offers none of that.
Sort of. You can mark read, file into folders, move to trash, and forward emails. You can't set flags on incoming messages, nor can you create specific auto-reply rules — there's only a single generic "Vacation Rule" that auto-replies to everybody within a certain timeframe. Rules can also be based on from/to/cc/subject and list-id, but they can't search the body of an incoming email, nor act on things like attachments or whether the sender is in your address book.
Also, the rules have to be configured directly in the iCloud web interface — they don't sync to Apple Mail on the Mac. It has its own rules, which are much more sophisticated, but are only processed locally on the Mac. This isn't too bad if you have a Mac running all the time with the Mail app open, since it can run those rules locally, which will sync to your other devices, but it's still not as great as server-side rules.
To be clear, all the hype and discussion about custom domain support has been based on this one paragraph found on Apple's iOS 15 Preview Page:
That is the entirety of what we know about this upcoming feature right now. However, if I had to guess, I'd say that knowing Apple, it's probably going to be limited to a single custom domain, which is hinted at by the use of the singular in that paragraph ("a custom domain name") and the fact that it's clearly geared toward creating a single domain that you can invite your other family members to. I strongly suspect this will also be tied to Family Sharing, since Apple has to provide a way for you to control who else can use addresses at your domain, and there's no point in creating a whole new interface when the current Family Sharing arrangement will do the job.
I also wouldn't hold my breath on support for things like catch-all addresses. After all, we only need to look at how relatively basic iCloud Mail is to know that it's never been about power user features.
Of course, I'm also hopeful that maybe Apple will use this opportunity to beef up iCloud+ Mail, and if they're taking that approach, then anything's possible.
I use it regularly. When I'm at work I have web mail open. I'm just so much faster typing on a keyboard than on my phone. And I use it to set rules that apply to mail on all my devices.
I'd love to see a web books app. And support for sending library books from libby to apple books. I use the kindle PC app while I'm at work to read books I get from libby.
In between work projects, while I'm waiting for more work to arrive, i'll read books on my work computer.
I'd love to see a web books app. And support for sending library books from libby to apple books. I use the kindle PC app while I'm at work to read books I get from libby.
In between work projects, while I'm waiting for more work to arrive, i'll read books on my work computer.
I’m hoping that this is the beginning of apple significantly updating its email clients ie a rebuild of iCloud mail for when it adds modern email experiences such as snooze etc next year. Maybe.
Every part of mail in the Apple ecosystem could use some Apple attention. Thumbs up!
I'm glad they continue to invest in this but I really wish they'd introduce server-side mail rules and Smart Mailboxes and sync them with the ones in Mail.app.
Maybe their webmail is better - but they randomly block sites for Email Access and neither you nor in most cases the sender will never receive any kind of notification.
That made me stop use their service (outlook.com - you won't have that problem with Exchange.Online)
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You can create server side rules in mail on the web. And it applies to all the devices and mail apps. I set rules to filter mail to various folders I've created through icloud.com and it continues to do that on the mail app on macs, iphones and even 3rd party apps like spark.
The downside is they can only be added, removed and edited on the web.
I use it when I am on my work computer and want to get my email, calendar or to do list information.
I don't mind the current design so much. But it does feel sluggish and it is lacking in some features. Gonna give the beta a spin and see what is like.
EDIT: Can't comment on features yet, but just clicking around and testing general responsiveness, it's much much improved. Very nice!
EDIT: Can't comment on features yet, but just clicking around and testing general responsiveness, it's much much improved. Very nice!
Apple Mail never stuck with me, and the experience from years ago really turned me off from using it. I despise that Gmail doesn’t have a desktop app for Mac—super trashy and low-budget on their part. Still, something about Gmail’s simplicity and precise sizing of rows, lack of loading effects, and “snappy” feeling is something to be desired. Sometimes less is more and the 90s ghettonet with the gaudy blue links and simplicity really got it right the first time.
..Apple working on redesigning icloud Mail...how about using the opportunity extending it to the Mail App itself? In particular, the loss of the ability of Time Machine to search through past emails with the elegant ease that existed up to the introduction of OS Catalina - and just disappeared thereafter...consigning users to rummaging in the bowels of the system Finder for obscurely named back up folders...Come on Apple. Please fix it.
Mmmh. I feel like the convergence of macOS and iOS will lead to a dumbed down macOS. I wouldn't get my hopes up for this feature to return.
They can't get nearly as complex as the ones in the actual Mail.app.
- You can only set one condition to a rule, not multiple.
- You can't target things nearly as precisely
- You can't perform nearly as many actions with a message as you can on Mail.app
- You can't apply names to the rules.
Serious email management on iOS and iPadOS without a Mac or a third-party client is seriously lacking at the moment.
I keep my iMac running with Mail.app open all the time. If I go out of town for the weekend and shut it off I get a lot of crap in my inbox that I normally never need to see.
I have to imagine icloud.com webmail use is low so it gets neglected, but iCloud syncing, always operating mail rules would benefit all Mail.app users greatly.
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As many people that care about, want unity between their devices on, and constantly have to redo ALL,
mod their email Rules!
#*#+%^{ - come on Apple this is last decades email server and needs serious improvements INCLUDING:
Mail rule synchronization that does NOT break with every iOS macOS or iPadOS version upgrade. This is basic cheese man.
collapsible folders - seems to be present in web BUT not when you want to move emails and it’s non existent on any mobile OS Apple makes.
Like seriously this is embarrassing Apple. The rubber band scroll is just so tiring.
I agree with you that Mail needs a major revamp in both places. I don't think Apple is concerned about it on the web, at least they don't appear to be lo these many years.
Well, keep in mind that the Apple Mail app and iCloud Mail on the web are also fundamentally different things.
Although rule sync should definitely be a thing with iCloud Mail — it is Apple's own service, after all, so I would expect it to work hand-in-glove with Apple Mail — I suspect there are a lot of people who use Apple's Mail app with many other email services, from Gmail to Exchange to various IMAP (and even POP) providers.
There was a time when Apple offered a cloud-based sync for mail preferences and rules, but that was a very long time ago. So long I can't even remember when it last worked. It may have been in the MobileMe and .Mac days — although it had nothing to do with a .Mac/MobileMe/iCloud account; the settings were synced via iCloud, in the same way that actual mail accounts are now, but it also includes preferences and rules.
Of course, there are obvious complexities to syncing local rules, which is likely why Apple abandoned it, and local/iCloud rules would suffer from some of the same challenges, although it's certainly nothing Apple couldn't figure out if it really wanted to.
However, it's also frustrating and baffling that Apple still doesn't have a full-featured push sync working with iCloud Mail either. New mail gets pushed, as it always has, but not any other mailbox changes — despite the fact that Apple helped Fastmail completely nail this six years ago.
At the end of the day, I really do wonder how much demand there is for these things from the majority of iCloud users. This is the first indication we've seen in years that Apple is taking iCloud Mail even a little bit more seriously, but many users who want more from their email simply use another service, and that's really no skin off Apple's nose, since iCloud provides so much more than just mail almost nobody is going to stop paying for iCloud just because they don't use it for email.
Interesting. I find if I create rules on the web (vs. in the desktop app), they sync across my devices.
What's meant here by "sync" in this context is actually being able to configure and manage the rules on multiple devices.
Rules set up on the web will appear to function across all of your devices because they're applied on the server before messages are delivered to your devices in the first place. So they're not really "syncing" per se — they're just running on the server, and your devices are getting the results of that.
By the same token, rules created in Apple Mail on your Mac will function in the same way as long as Mail on your Mac is running and it's connected to the internet. In that case, the rules are applied on your Mac, and your other Macs and iOS devices simply get the results, since the actual mailbox data does sync over IMAP.