Apple’s trusty old Mail app has seen a flurry of updates for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. These include Gmail-like Mail categories, notification and message summaries, and contact photos right in your inbox.
But not everyone likes the new changes. Fortunately, you can disable these new features and go back to simpler times. Here’s how.
Disable Apple Mail Categories
Mail categories are an attempt to sort your inbox so that you can triage your incoming mail a little easier. They work on any devices running iOS or iPadOS 18.2 and Mac computers with macOS 15.4 installed (no Apple Intelligence necessary).
Categories include:
- Primary: Messages that Mail thinks are most important, including messages sent from actual people.
- Transactions: Shopping, invoice, finance, and other money-related messages.
- Updates: Messages from companies, social media, projects, sports teams, and so on that are automated.
- Promotions: Marketing fluff, special offers, and a lot of spam.
While helpful in theory, Apple Mail’s sorting isn’t perfect. I’ve found messages from project management app Airtable in the Promotions bin, and a lot of spam tends to make its way into the Primary category. Fortunately, you can turn this off.
Turn Off Mail Categories on iPhone or iPad
On an Apple smartphone or tablet, tap on the ellipsis “…” icon at the top of the screen to toggle between “Categories” and “List View.” Picking “List View” returns your inbox to the old way of doing things.
Once you’ve made this change, you shouldn’t have to do it again. Remember that Mail is always sorting this stuff in the background, so you can turn it on and off at will without any kind of delay.
Turn Off Mail Categories on Mac
For some reason, Apple also saw fit to add a fifth category to Apple Mail for Mac. This is the “All Mail” category and it appears right at the end of the options above your inbox. Click on it and you’ll see everything. It’s a way to leave categorization enabled while still having a quick way to see everything.
Alternatively, go the whole hog and turn categorization off entirely. Just look for the ellipsis “…” button at the top of your inbox, click on it, and turn off “Show Mail Categories.” You’ll also find this option under the “View” menu.
Alternatively, Improve Apple’s Categorization
If you’d rather leave the feature on, you can recategorize messages so that Apple Mail always places certain senders in specific categories. Over time, you might find the feature to be a lot more useful once you’ve put some work in.
Recategorize Apple Mail Senders on iPhone and iPad
On an iPhone, make sure that mail categories are enabled. From here, tap on a thread in the Transactions, Updates, or Promotions category to bring up the sender view.
Now tap on the ellipsis “…” button at the top of the screen and use “Categorize Sender” to pick a new category.
Recategorize Apple Mail Senders on Mac
On a Mac, this process is a bit quicker. You can right-click on any email thread and then use the “Categorize Sender” menu to pick a more appropriate label.
Disable Mail Notification Summaries
Notification summaries are an Apple Intelligence feature. They work on iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 16 models running iOS 18.1, and all M1 Mac or better models running macOS 15.1.
Though the feature attempts to summarize long chains of emails and detailed messages, it can sometimes get the wrong end of the stick with hilarious or anxiety-inducing results. You can turn the feature off for Apple Mail, while leaving it on for other things.
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Turn Off Mail Notification Summaries on iPhone or iPad
You can turn off Notification Summaries under Settings > Notifications > Summarize Notifications. To get rid of the feature entirely, just disable the “Summarize Notifications” toggle.
To be more selective, use the menu below to exclude specific apps (in this case Mail) from being summarized.
Turn Off Mail Notification Summaries on Mac
Disabling Notification Summaries works the same on a Mac. Head to System Settings > Notifications > Summarize Notifications. Here you can either choose to toggle the feature off entirely or exclude Mail (and any other apps) from the summary.
On my aging M1 Max MacBook Pro I’ve noticed a slight delay between hearing the email notification and the pop-up appearing, which is a result of Apple Intelligence taking its sweet time to summarize my message. Disabling the feature restored instant notifications once again.
Disable Message Preview Summaries
Message preview summaries appear above an email when you tap or click on it, and below the subject line (in place of the body preview) in the inbox view. They’re the same summaries you see when you receive an email notification summary, except they appear in the Mail app rather than as a pop-up. They have the same Apple Intelligence requirements.
Turn Off Message Preview Summaries on iPhone or iPad
Turn off summaries in Mail by going to Settings > Apps > Mail and toggling “Summarize Message Previews” off.
Turn Off Message Preview Summaries on Mac
On a Mac, you can turn this feature off by opening Mail and then clicking Mail > Settings at the top of the screen. From here, click on the “Viewing” tab and disable “Summarize Message Previews.”
Disable Priority Messages
Priority messages appear in the “Primary” category and at the top of your inbox. They include messages that Apple Mail thinks are important, usually based on criteria like a time-sensitive nature. Priority Messages are an Apple Intelligence feature.
Turn Off Priority Messages on iPhone or iPad
You can disable Priority Messages by opening the Mail app and tapping on the ellipsis “…” icon at the top of your inbox. From here, uncheck “Show Priority” and these messages will appear in regular chronological order.
Turn Off Priority Messages on Mac
On a Mac, you can hide Priority Messages by opening the Mail app and then clicking View > Show Priority Messages.
Apple Mail will now show contact photos in Mail by default, at least that seems to be the case on iPhone and iPad. On my Mac, the feature didn’t enable itself by default (but there’s still a toggle for it).
While the feature is designed to make your inbox easier to use at a glance, most senders aren’t in my contacts so I found that the feature just takes up unnecessary space on the screen. Fortunately, you can disable it.
Turn Off Contact Photos in Mail on iPhone and iPad
On an iPhone or iPad, disable the feature under the Settings > Apps > Mail menu by disabling the “Show Contact Photos” toggle in the “Message List” section.
Turn Off Contact Photos in Mail on Mac
On a Mac, this is even quicker. Just open the Mail app and then click View > Show Contact Photos at the top of the screen to toggle the feature on or off.
Though these features are designed to make life easier, the reality is that Apple Mail was a lot simpler before Apple made any changes to it. By turning everything off, you can get your favorite bog-standard email back.
Unimpressed with Apple’s AI moves? Turn off Apple Intelligence altogether.
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