This is one of many reasons why I switched to Hey. There are three main categories and you manually screen all incoming messages. It makes it super easy to filter messages where you want, and have notifications for those you'd like.
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How to Turn Off Apple Mail Categories
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I get the All Mail option on my Mac but oddly not on my iPhone.
The feature is completely useless. It doesn’t even manage to categorize mails from Amazon and ASOS properly on my end. Apple really dropped the ball here.
Look at the attached screenshot of the first time a user opens the new mail: the app explains what it is, asks you if you'd like to switch off and if not, it tells you where to do so later if you so choose.
If that is "forcing" it on you, I don't know what more you'd like Apple to do here 🤷♂️
Second, if you try to see it from Apple's perspective - they've undoubtedly used thousands of man hours building it and they want people to discover it. The vast majority of users will never discover if it's a hidden option in settings.
Again, really not sure what you would like Apple or any company to do in such a situation.
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that's one way of interpreting it.
Another interpretation is that they've noticed that people on these forums hate most new things and are simply giving them service by telling them how to turn the new thing off
Not saying which one is the right one - if either - but just pointing out that there are more than one way to interpret this
I didn't like the sound of this until I got it installed and I think it's great - helped me to delete tons of legacy amazon mails about reviews etc - Train booking notifications etc.
Switching back and forth between full list and categorised is seamless so it's not an issue for those who don't want a categorised list - I just switch back and forth from time to time to make sure everything is sorted right.
Cheers Apple Devs!
Switching back and forth between full list and categorised is seamless so it's not an issue for those who don't want a categorised list - I just switch back and forth from time to time to make sure everything is sorted right.
Cheers Apple Devs!
Oh, brilliant!!! Thanks so much for that! Got rid of them!
Are you serious? The new Outlook they are pushing everyone to is a mess (https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/i-actually-hate-the-new-outlook-for-windows). It removes a lot of features from the legacy Outlook, is mostly a web wrapper, and they store your login credentials and your email on Microsoft servers. One really needs to research the new Outlook before considering to installing it: https://www.xda-developers.com/privacy-implications-new-microsoft-outlook/
Microsoft's software has been going down in quality over the last several years. Coming from someone who uses Windows 10 at home, and Office 365 and Windows 11 at work. Going from Windows 10 to 11 and legacy Outlook to the new Outlook is a step down. When it comes to an email client I use eM Client: https://www.emclient.com/
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As I said elsewhere in this thread, Outlook on mobile devices is nothing like Outlook on Windows. It's actually quite confusing how many versions of Outlook there are - almost as confusing as Apple's Apple Pencil compatibility matrix.
The first article I linked had this comment near the top:
Yeah, the "New Outlook" is absolute ****. Same thing on macOS -- the new version lacks several key features the old one had (most egregious to me is the lack of complete support for local folders, which I absolutely cannot do without).
Outlook for mobile devices is no different when it comes to the privacy angle according to Microsoft's website (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/sync-your-account-in-outlook-to-the-microsoft-cloud-985f9e19-d308-4e85-9d1d-0c6f32f8e981#officeversion=ios_&_android) the cloud sync that is a privacy nightmare is included in Outlook for iOS, Outlook for Android, and new Outlook for Mac. So if your okay with Microsoft storing your other email service's credentials and email on their cloud servers when using their mobile apps, then by all mean enjoy the experience.
If you think you will just stay with the legacy Outlook, that comes to an end come 2029 when they are going to force everyone into the new Outlook, which I would expect to happen on MacOS also.
I completely agree there are too many versions, something they did also with Teams. How is Microsoft writing the best software in history when you have something this confusing along with the stripping down of features and privacy?
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I didn't say the best software in history, I said the best software in their history. That is a huge difference.
When I said "How is Microsoft writing the best software in history", I meant THEIR HISTORY. What I am disagreeing with is that this is not the best software they have written in their history. The new Outlook is crap and has huge privacy issues. Windows 11 is a step down from Windows 10 (no more local accounts, forcing MS cloud accounts, what?!?!). The Office 365 apps originally used crappy electron framework, and now going more with a WebViewer2 wrapper. The mobile apps have serious privacy concerns. They are basically making their desktop apps the same as their web versions, just in a desktop window frame. That to me overall is a step down and not the best software they have written in their history.
Old outlook: rotten abandonware with attempts to modernise it hanging off everywhere. Doesn’t even render emails properly.
New outlook: absolutely broken user interface all over the place. Offline is terrible. Fat memory consuming electron turd.
Mobile: contact sync just doesn’t exist or doesn’t work when it does. UI is crap. Bugs.
So far, I did not have to swipe to the left (or click a button) in my 30 years with Apple devices to get the All Mail View.
It’s really easy to disable the feature. Really no need to turn it into a drama.
You can also just click the category again or double tap another category to open All Mail
You can turn categories off with a simple click.
The amount of vitriol that the toxic fandom spews is very large, and outsized in proportion to the actual issues.
It’s not my fault they’ve spent hours on it-why should I suffer? Apple should be designing new features to give users options and flexibility and tell them these features are available in the settings, not front and centre in the apps themselves.
We’ve gone from having one edit button in the top of the mail app to an ever-present select button and a three-dots menu for toggling between categories and list.
Why can’t they just stick this feature in the settings app? It’s a different configuration of email, not something that people will be toggling on and off multiple times a day/week, therefore it belongs in the settings app in my view.
Go re-read my post. You can not turn categories off. You can just choose the list view that ignores them. Mail still continues to maintain the categories and sort/assign messages, even if you choose not to engage with the feature or display messages based on categories. This is not vitriol or toxic fandom, this is a simple statement of how it works. Picking list view "turns off" categories the same way picking "all mail" ignores sorting and spam filtering in Gmail. Even in list view, Mail still assigns icons to mail messages based on their designated category unless the sender has included their own icon with tag in the header. You can turn the display of those icons off too by turning off contact photos in the Mail app settings, but Mail still tags and assigns them the same. Mail also seems to occasionally jump back to category view from list view if we have to redo an account login.
Mail categories would be a great feature if they allowed us to define our own categories and train it to those categories. Better yet if they extended to the Mac where we could also manage there. Where Apple is dropping the ball on Mail is they're not creating and building a consistent Mail experience across their platforms.
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I received this in an MS Newsletter from Feb 2025. After October 2025, Microsoft 365 subscriptions associated with a Microsoft 365 account (personal, work, or school) will no longer be able to use legacy Microsoft Outlook for Mac. This transition marks a significant step towards a more robust, feature-rich, and secure email experience for all users.
I use MS365. I don’t think I will be able to use Legacy outlook after October, will I? I don’t want to switch, but I don’t think I have much choice, it would be a big hassle to change my email!
I have also seen some posts online about people losing emails, subfolders not populating after switching from Legacy to “New”. I am trying to find out how to backup my Outlook email file. Does anyone know how to do that? I was directed to use the “Archive” function (I think from MS Community), but I think that removes the emails to an archive. I just want a backup in case anything gets lost. thanks! Donna
Hi boing. I am concerned about the “New” Outlook too. I had briefly tried it a while ago and went back to Legacy. Now I don’t have a choice because I am using MS365 on Mac/IOS. It’s going away in Oct. I have been using Outlook for over 20 years (and it has been my preference until now!) I have lots of emails organized in lots of folders. What do you mean by “the lack of complte support for local folders”? Can I still create/use folders in the New Outlook? I’m also very concerned about the privacy/security issues. I was not aware of them until i read the posts here. It doesn’t make sense how/why MS would compromise customer info in this manner!
The problem for me is to migrate off MS365 seems like an insurmountable task - I’d have to change my email. Move all my emails. Move many OneDrive files (which is easier to me than changing email). And I don’t even know what else. I use Outlook, OneDrive, Excel and Word. I could use the Apple counterparts, though I don’t like them as much. I don’t know what to do, I just wish they’d not be changing things for the worse!!!!
I’d like to hear what others are going to do if you choose not to use Outlook, MS365, Windows products any longer. thanks! Donna