Get Rid of Contact Photos in iPhone's Mail App

[MacRumors]

When Apple released iOS 18.2, it introduced a major change to the Mail app with its new Categories and priority messages features. Categories automatically sorts your emails into four distinct sections: Primary, Transactions, Updates, and Promotions. The change also adds contact photos and business logos for conversations in your inbox, but if you don't like how they look, it's easy enough to make them go away.

Contact photos have been added to the Mail app in an effort to make it easier to identify the senders of all the emails you receive. However, if Apple can't recognize a business, or a contact doesn't have an associated photo, it can end up making your inbox look a bit of a mess.

Fortunately, you can easily turn off the little pictures completely by following these steps:

1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
2. Swipe to the bottom of the menu and tap Apps.
3. Search for or scroll to Mail in the list of apps.
4. Under "Message List," toggle off the switch next to Show Contact Photos.

That's all you need to do. To reinstate the contact pictures, simply turn on the same option in Settings. If your unhappiness with the new-look Mail app extends to Apple's categorization feature, you can disable this element too. Follow the link to learn how it's done.

Article Link: Get Rid of Contact Photos in iPhone's Mail App

 

[macintologist]

A minor point upgrade shouldn’t dramatically change the UI like that. That should happen on a major version upgrade.

 

[Crowbot]

A minor point upgrade shouldn’t dramatically change the UI like that. That should happen on a major version upgrade.

Why wait? They put it in when it was ready. And it can be turned off.

 

[DesignTime]

Did anyone notice Apple made the contact photos smaller on iOS 18.3? I kinda like the smaller photos.

 

[JosephAW]

Yet Apple has been inconsistent with the phone gui, you can display contact photo in mail whether in normal or zoom display mode yet in messages the contact photo will only appear in normal mode and not zoomed mode if you don’t have a Pro Max display. This is been one of my pet peeves with iOS for sometime. There needs to be more than two settings for zoom display, maybe four different positions instead of just two. 📱

 

[Green Valkyrie]

I'd love to return to using Mail but its ongoing refusal to support swipe left / right to view next / previous email is a deal-breaker. Ridiculous it's still not present in 2025.

 

[contacos]

I have yet to see a supported company using it. Turned it off in the meantime. Looks nice in marketing material but thats unfortunately about it

 

[Zorn]

Contact photos have never once been functional for me in mail. I have the toggle on and have gone off/on dozens of times, no photos in mail. If I use Outlook, every email has one. Infuriating

 

[spillled typos]

Contact photos in mail has worked without issue for me but they take up too much space! Thank you for this tip! I didn’t know it was possible to turn it off.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Why wait? They put it in when it was ready. And it can be turned off.

I don't use Mail, so I have no dog in this hunt, but I will say that it really messes with my older relatives when Apple shifts around UI stuff randomly (to that users point, in point releases).

When big visual changes are at least confined to major updates, we are able to "brace for it" and spend some time with them guiding through the new look and how things changed, etc

There was a time Apple cared a bit more about these sorts of usability and accessibility concerns... a long time ago now I realize. 😕

 

[Muero]

I have yet to see a supported company using it. Turned it off in the meantime. Looks nice in marketing material but thats unfortunately about it

During a quick scan of my email inbox, I found I've received emails from at least 18 companies that have this new contact image.

 

[Blue Nova]

Apple is looking for ways to amaze us. But no thanks. I’m turning it off.

 

[sw1tcher]

Why wait? They put it in when it was ready. And it can be turned off.

Too bad Apple didn't follow that advice before rolling out notification summaries powered by Apple Intelligence with iOS 18.1

We all know how that turned out 😂

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[thadoggfather]

I really tried to like this feature, because it's 'new' but I don't.

Shows less text on body of emails and subject line, and most of the graphics are generic and not company specific.

I also turned it off... more of change for the sake of change as best I can tell.

 

[Carlos51]

It seems that Contact photos in Mail are not available on Spanish versions of iOS.
Neither my iPhone 15 Plus nor my iPad Pro M2 show the “Show Contacts Photo” options.
Isn’t Apple an “inclusive” company? Inclusive doesn’t stop in the LGBTQ+ realm, It should extend to other languages.
Carlos

 

[klasma]

Why wait? They put it in when it was ready. And it can be turned off.

They could make it opt-in and only switch to opt-out on the next major version.

The thing is, many users don’t want to be subject to the UI on their phone changing every other month.

Personally, I’ve taken the consequence to only update at the end of a major-version cycle by default.

 

[contacos]

During a quick scan of my email inbox, I found I've received emails from at least 18 companies that have this new contact image.

Wow. I just checked again. 4 Inboxes and the only email with a picture is an email from Apple

 

[macmac30]

Regarding Contact photos, what the h*ll is wrong with Apple's implementation? For years, I have tried updating a picture for a contact, crop it to size, and save it. Then the screen flashes several times and the picture reverts to the original. If I do this enough times, sometimes it sticks. WTF??? So annoying.

 

[bigjnyc]

Looks like the article is using an older screen shot... Since 18.3 Apple made the icons much smaller..... Now when turning it on or off, it doesn't make a difference in my inbox how much vertical space each email takes. I only have sender and subject... no preview lines

 

[Aeronauts]

The one thing I really need is the ability to reorder my emails alphabetically by sender. I can do this on the Mac but still can’t do it on the iPhone or iPad.

 

[Skyscraperfan]

Apple sorting the emails by content is quite creepy. It feels like Apple reading the emails, even if it is on device. Will Apple also create a category "dirty talk"?

 

[BigJohno]

Apple really screwed the pooch with this update. I thought I would like it when they announced at wwdc. After using it, I reverted it essentially to the old mail. Trying to change something for sake of change is not good.

 

[Starfia]

Fitting to devote an article just to this one thing; a lot of people seem to be wondering about it.

The main problem with all these Mail updates (for years and years!) seems to be that Apple got the Mail app pretty much right on both the Mac and the iPhone from the start – just slight tuning and fixing real bugs has been sufficient.

At this point I'm sort of craving to hear from someone who actually does like the more dramatic updates, just to try to understand what they're thinking.

 

[Two Appleseeds]

Can't stand these updates. The mail app worked. We don't need ux design changes for no reason.

 

[ifxf]

Yet not supported on the ipad.