How To Organize Emails Using Categories on Mail for iPhone, iPad, and Mac
Getting to Know the Automated Email Categories in Apple’s Recent Updates
So, I finally got around to digging into the new email categorization stuff that Apple rolled out with iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.4, and macOS Sequoia 15.4. Honestly, it’s been a long time coming—people have complained about a cluttered inbox for ages, and now Apple’s trying to automate some of that sorting for us. The idea is that instead of manually dragging emails into folders or endlessly hunting through newsletters, the Mail app can sort things itself into predefined categories. It’s supposed to help us find important messages faster, with categories like Primary, Transactions, Updates, and Promotions. Sounds promising, but I’ll admit I was skeptical until I saw it in action.
If you want to turn these categories on, it’s usually under Settings > Mail > Categorize or sometimes tucked away in Mail > Preferences > Viewing, depending on your device and OS version. Usually, there’s an option called Show Mail Categories. You need to enable that first—once it’s on, you can pick your default view, and a new set of tabs or sections should appear in the Mail app. If they’re not showing up immediately, try toggling the feature off and on again, or a quick restart of Mail. Sometimes, it took a few moments for everything to settle, especially on my older ASUS device, where menus are a little buried.
How It Works on Different Devices
On iPhone and iPad, it’s pretty straightforward once you get everything set up. Emails automatically jump into their categories—your personal stuff in Primary, receipts and shipping notices in Transactions, newsletters and social notifications in Updates, and all the sales or coupons in Promotions. If you tap on a category, it shows just those emails, which honestly makes scrolling through a huge inbox way easier. To enable this, go to Settings > Mail > Show Mail Categories and toggle it on. Then, in the Mail app, you’ll see tabs or sections labeled as those categories. If they’re not showing up after enabling, try force-closing the Mail app, or sometimes, a device reboot helps.
In my experience, the categories sometimes act a little inconsistent at first. Emails from the same sender might end up split between categories depending on the algorithm’s mood. It took a couple of days to really settle into a pattern—just enough time to get annoyed a few times. Luckily, you can manually reassign emails, which is where I finally got more control.
Manual Moves and Customizations
If a crucial email (say, from your bank) ends up in Promotions or Updates instead of Primary, you can manually move it. On iPhone or iPad, swipe left on that message, tap More, then pick Categorize Sender or sometimes it appears as Change Category—depends on how cluttered my menus look that day. You get to choose the category you want it to be in—moving those “urgent” emails into Primary is sometimes just a long press away. Once you do that, future emails from that sender should automatically land in the chosen category, which is kind of comforting. This process is a little hidden-off; I had to dig around in menus and long-press on some emails before I found it consistently.
On Mac, things are a bit more elegant—just right-click on an email, and you’ll see Recategorize. Both in the sidebar and the message options, you’ve got access to those category labels like Primary or Promotions. If you need to revert to system defaults or reset your manual categorizations, there’s a Reset Categorization button in Mail > Preferences > Categories. That way, the system can re-learn from scratch, which is useful if everything gets totally tangled. I’ve toggled this a few times—mainly when the categories started acting weird after a few updates—so don’t be afraid to experiment with it.
Adjusting Views and Preferences
If the categories just feel cluttered or not your thing at all, you can switch back to a simple list view. Disabling categories is in Settings > Mail > Show Mail Categories—just turn that toggle off, and everything merges back into a single inbox. Not everyone wants Apple’s “smart” sorting, so this is a quick way to undo it.
There’s also an option to get a better grasp of how the sorting happens—check Settings > Mail > About Categories. It explains their logic: mostly based on sender type, age of the email, content hints, and a bit of machine learning. If things seem totally off, there’s a button labeled Reset Manual Categorization, which is supposed to wipe out your custom sender choices and let the system decide fresh. Sometimes, I wonder if the algorithm is a black box—on some emails, I feel it has a mind of its own. Still, patience is key here.
Browsing in Mac and Cross-Device Behavior
On Mac, I find things just a tad more flexible. Clicking the category tabs in the sidebar filters the inbox accordingly, and you can reassign sender categories more easily. Right-clicking on a message to Recategorize is straightforward, and bulk moves are possible too. To turn off categories on Mac, hop into Mail > Preferences > Viewing and disable Show Mail Categories. When I toggle this off, I lose the tabs, but my inbox gets nice and plain again—it’s kind of like switch flicking. Honestly, I go back and forth depending on how much I trust Apple’s sorting or if I just want to see everything chronologically.
In Practice: Is It Still a Work in Progress?
Here’s where it got a little frustrating—I won’t lie. Sometimes, emails from the same sender end up in different categories, which kind of defeats the purpose. Other times, newer emails aren’t classified correctly right away, and I had to manually drag or reassign them. The system does get smarter over time—if you manually mark a sender as something, it will learn. But early on? Yeah, a lot of manual fixing.
And let’s be honest—that “smart” categorization isn’t perfect. It’s still buggy, sometimes inconsistent, and enough to make you want to disable it altogether. But if you’re totally drowning in newsletters and transactional emails, the categories *might* help a little, especially after some trial and error. Honestly, it took me a while to get comfortable with how it behaves, and I’m still not convinced it’s totally reliable yet. Anyway, I hope this gives a realistic picture—yes, it’s a mixed bag, but worth experimenting with if you’re tired of inbox chaos.