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With the iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2 betas that came out today, Apple introduced an updated version of the Mail app with built-in categorization.

iOS-18-Mail-Categorization.png

Mail Categories organize your incoming emails into different sections. Important emails are shown in a "Primary" category, with orders, newsletters, social notifications, and deals organized into three other sections.

The "Transactions" section includes receipts, orders, and deliveries, and it makes it easy to find orders that you've placed and shipping information for those orders.

The "Updates" section includes newsletters, alerts for things like doctor's appointments and correspondence, and other subscription emails. Apple's "Promotions" category includes special offers and deal emails.

Categorization appears to be a work in progress at this time, which is not surprising as this is a beta. Emails may be mis-categorized or might show up in multiple categories, but that's likely something that Apple will address over time.

Devices that have Apple Intelligence support will show priority emails in the Primary inbox, so you can see what's most important first. If an email in the Transactions, Updates, or Promotions section includes time-sensitive information, it will also be in the Primary section of the inbox.

Categories is the default view after updating to the new software, but in the upper right corner of the Mail app, you can swap back to a list view that shows all emails in chronological order, without separation into categories.

The Mail app has an "About Categories" section where you can see how your messages have been categorized over the course of the last week, but there is no option to tell the Mail app if you believe an email has been put into the wrong category.

Article Link: iOS 18.2 Includes Revamped Mail App With Built-In Categorization
 
My life got so much better when I switched to Fastmail and no longer have to worry about client side app interoperability and feature changes and tweaks on the device side.

I really love having all that just be server side full-time and no matter where I access things it’s always the same

Original Gmail really got that right out of the gate
 
I hope that this "categorization" is an opt-in feature, don't want an app doing this for me ... if it is not optional, either no 18.2 or no apple mail client anymore
It says in the post that it is the default but can be turned off
 
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I hope that this "categorization" is an opt-in feature, don't want an app doing this for me ... if it is not optional, either no 18.2 or no apple mail client anymore
You can turn it off for regular list view if you do not want to use it. It is only on iPhone mail not available yet that I can see on my iPadOS 18.2
 
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Perhaps less AI features and getting Mail to work with M365 shared mailboxes so we can quit using Outlook would be something to consider.
 
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This is the only thing I really miss from gmail when I switched to Outlook/Exchange. Maybe worth switching to Apple Mail -- just wish Apple Mail was able to directly edit exchange server side rules.
 
I'm not seeing any photos or icons on the emails, is that just me or did they not enable that part yet?
 
My life got so much better when I switched to Fastmail and no longer have to worry about client side app interoperability and feature changes and tweaks on the device side.

I really love having all that just be server side full-time and no matter where I access things it’s always the same

Original Gmail really got that right out of the gate
I assume you have custom domain as well? Really interested in Fastmail but migrating from 20 years of Gmail is painful.
 
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I assume you have custom domain as well? Really interested in Fastmail but migrating from 20 years of Gmail is painful.

Yep - a whole bunch of them

Combined with my 1Password sub I'm nearly fully captured, as their integration with each other to instantly create masked emails from my custom domains is just ...killer ... absolutely killer

(among so so many benefits I could enumerate if I sat and really thought about it - FastMail is phenomenal)
 
It would be cool if you can pin your own categories to the top, maybe as a form of saved searches. For example, it would be useful to have a button at the top to show all emails from my boss.
 
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