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With iOS 18.2, Apple added a Categories view in the Mail app, which is designed to organize your incoming emails by type. Categories hasn't been receiving the best response from iPhone users, so we thought we'd check it out.


Mail Categories organizes your email inbox into the following sections: Primary for your most important messages, Transactions for your orders and receipts, Promotions for deals and offers, and Updates for news, subscriptions, and social.

When Mail Categories is enabled, your Primary inbox will be front and center, and then you can swipe over to see other emails that fall into the other categories. The idea is that emails that aren't important like newsletters and deals are tucked away, but there's also an added benefit of having all of your order receipts in one spot, or your emails about sales in one section of your inbox.

There's also a useful feature that aggregates all of the emails from a single sender into one view, so you can see all of your Amazon emails in one place, or everything you've received from an airline. To get to this view, you just need to tap into any email from that sender and then scroll up to see other messages.

The Primary inbox contains emails from other categories, and it's a feature that can make sense for someone with an overwhelming inbox, but it's not likely something that inbox zero people are going to like.

If you don't like Mail Categories, you can swap back over to List View by tapping on the three dots in the upper right corner of the Mail app, but if you do want to give Mail Categories a try, there are a couple tips worth noting.

To get to a view of your inbox with all emails in chronological order without swapping views, just swipe left on the category bar to get to the "All Mail" option.

It's not uncommon for an email to be sent to the wrong category, and if that happens, you can tap into the email, tap on the three dots in the upper right hand corner of the display, and then choose the Categorize Sender option to choose a category manually. If you're in the Primary inbox, though, you need to hit reply and then choose the Categorize Sender option.

When you tap into a message from a sender, you can delete all emails from that sender by using the three dots at the top right of the display and choosing the "Trash All" option.

What do you think of categories in Mail? Is it a feature you plan to use? Let us know in the comments below.

Article Link: iOS 18.2: Here's How Mail Categories Wo
 
Same. Its what Google has had for years now, hated it then, hate it now on my iPhone. Turned it off. I don't need it categorized.

Same here. It only confused me. I just want all my mail together in one place. I was expecting an important email, but couldn't find it. I hate it when Apple makes something new the default, but doesn't explain it.
 
The parade of colourful icons is initially interesting but they are too big and seem somewhat garish over time. Very childlike but I would prefer to be treated like an adult.
 
To see "All Mail" you can also tap the highlighted category.
Anyway, I stopped using this because I was always in the "All Mail" tab... It's just pointless.
 
Incorrect. Open the message, hit the three dots at the top right of the screen, and select "Categorize sender."
If you read the thread, you'd see that I was both right and wrong. What you wrote only applies if in any other inbox category besides Primary. Apple's how-to article on this says to do it the way I originally stated.
 
If you read the thread, you'd see that I was both right and wrong. What you wrote only applies if in any other inbox category besides Primary. Apple's how-to article on this says to do it the way I originally stated.
I did read the thread. Interesting how one can be both right and wrong while managing to sound condescending.
 
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I turned it off on my work emails, felt like Google’s labels and Microsoft’s “Focus” misfires prior.

I left it on for one of my personal spam email accounts to see how well it does but yeesh, the icons for the emails sure take up a lot of space 😭.
 
I did read the thread. Interesting how one can be both right and wrong while managing to sound condescending.
Well, if you had read and comprehended what you read, I wouldn't have had to explain it to you condescendingly because there would have been no need for you to comment.
 
I'm on 18.2.1 but I don't see this anywhere.

Does it not work on an iPhone 14 Plus? Or does it not work outside the US?

Not sure why it wouldn't but what other explanation could there be?
 
MS Outlook does it too and it just makes me so insanely angry and then you have to fish through 10 different submenus (because typical microsoft incompetence) to turn it off

The older I get the more i just hate anything that exists on a screen, and the more i just want a simple, analog life where you control everything you see and not the other way around
The days of applications made for nor focused on the end user having choice or control is no longer!

I hate this about this world.

Its like Tron taught us nothing at all.
 
Why is apple dedicating software engineering resources to ruining the Mail app and destroying the Photos app instead of fixing Siri and autocorrect, which have been broken from inception? Make it make sense......
Siri was broken from the beginning. It became theast way after John Giannandrea joined.
 
Google has real software engineers and it is an engineering driven company. Apple is all about marketing.
All the talent left soon after Job’s passing. People like Mansfield, Ive, Forstall, Serlet, all the great people of the past that were able to produce great products and great software.

The fact that they called what should have been called image studio, image playground, makes it all very clear. It’s all developed and written by kids, for kids.
💯

These engineers all worked at NeXT woth Jobs before coming to save Apple. Every single b one of them contributed to Apple's greatness rebuilding is foundation.
Mansfield the exception, didn't work at Next, i cannot revall whom he replaced too.

You also forgot Ave one of tbr other masters at NeXT whom helped built NeXT Step and Mac OS X, along with Serlet.

Everyone else just coattails rides. Tim shouldve stayed a bean counter.
 
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Incorrect. You need to open the message, hit the reply button, then choose "Categorize Sender".
The article is incorrect, but you're also incorrect. You can half-swipe to the left, tap on the three-dots panel and choose "Categorize Sender."

You're welcome!
 
My view on mail categorization:

1. LOVE the Primary. It's very accurate in sorting the important and time-sensitive emails from the rest.

2. The other categories need some user training to work well. A lot of email lists I subscribe to should be under "Updates" rather than "Promotions." But it is easy to correct it and from then on it works well.

3. If you don't want to use it, just tap the three dots menu at the top right of Mail and switch back to "List View." Done.

4. I'd like the option to make my own categories (other than Primary), but I expect that will come. Remember that this feature is version 1.0 right now. Give feedback if you want it to be better.

5. This is NOT an Apple Intelligence feature. Only the summarizing of the emails involves Apple Intelligence.
 
Bemused when it first opened and within a few hours was missing important incoming emails. Turned to list view but returned to take another look. It had categorised several emails incorrectly so I would I have to check every category each time I used it.
It’s now permanently switched off.
You can recategorize incorrectly-filed senders. Yes, it's a few seconds of extra work, but once done it's done forever.
 
This has to be one of the worse UIs ever, how earth is anyone supposed to know they swipe on the tabs to reveal this hidden All Mail button?
You don't have to do that. At the top of the Mail app on iPhone, there are three dots on the top right. Tap it, tap "List View." Done.
 
can’t believe us European still cannot get something so simple ass categorized mail. Don’t tell me it’s an AI thing cause it’s not.
 
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