What You Should Know About Mail Categories on Your iPhone

CNET

4 hours ago

Apple announced at its Worldwide Developers Conference on June 9 that the next version of the iPhone's operating system will be called iOS 26. The tech giant said iOS 26 will bring a transparent glass design to icons and menus, it will have a new Games app and much more to your iPhone. But when Apple released iOS 18.2 in December, it introduced a new feature in your Mail app that sorts your incoming emails into different categories for you, called Categories.
"The Mail app automatically sorts your email messages into categories to help you find and manage messages quicker," Apple wrote online. But if you don't like how Categories work in Mail, no worries, you can revert your app to look the way it did before the update.
Read more: Everything You Need to Know About iOS 18
Here's what you need to know about Mail Categories and how to turn the feature off so your app looks like it did before the update.
What are Mail Categories?
Mail Categories are similar to categories you would find in Gmail. The app filters your emails into one of four categories: Primary, Transactions, Updates and Promotions.
Apple/CNET
Emails with receipts, as well as order and delivery information, fill the Transactions category, and news, social and other subscription emails go to Updates. Emails with special offers and deals go to Promotions, as you might imagine.
The Primary category is more difficult to pin down. Apple says in the app that Primary is for "Messages that matter most." I've used the redesigned app since it launched in beta, and during that time my Primary category was filled with emails from my wife, customer service and even refund information. It's a little bit of a catch-all category.
Can I switch an email category?
You can for most messages but not all. Here's how.
1. Tap Mail.
2. Tap the Transactions, Updates or Promotions tab then tap a message.
3. Tap the three dots (...) in the top right corner.
4. Tap Categorization.
Then you can manually categorize messages from a given sender to another category. Unfortunately, all messages from a sender will go to the new category, which could be irksome. Once, I ordered tickets for a show at a local theater, and the email was filtered to Promotions. I moved the email with those tickets to Primary, but now all emails from this theater — including deals and sales — go to my Primary category. Not being able to change that categorization back is annoying.
It's important to note that you can recategorize an email from Promotions to Deals and then back to Promotions without issue. The only emails that can't be recategorized are those in Primary.
How do I turn off Mail Categories?
Apple/CNET
If you don't like Mail Categories, you can remove them so the app looks like it did before the update. Here's how.
1. Tap Mail.
2. Tap the three dots (...) in the top right corner of the app.
3. Tap List View.
Now your emails will populate in Mail from top to bottom as they arrive in your inbox. There is also a Mail Category called All Mail that seems to merge the new categories with List View, however you may have missed it like I did. To find All Mail, go into Mail with Categories enabled and swipe the categories bar near the top of Mail to the left to reveal the All Mail. Tap this and you will still see the Categories tabs across the top of Mail, but all your mail will be displayed in List View as it lands in your inbox.
For more on iOS 18, here's what you need to know about iOS 18.5 and iOS 18.4. You can also check out our iOS 18 cheat sheet and everything to know about iOS 26.