Revamped Mail App With Built-In Categorization Comes to Mac and iPad

The initial iPadOS 18.4 and macOS Sequoia 15.4 betas that Apple provided to developers today expand the revamped Mail app to the iPad and the Mac.

General macOS Mail Feature
The new Mail app features built-in categorization that organizes incoming emails into different sections. Important emails are displayed in the Primary category, with other emails organized into sections highlighting product orders, newsletters, deals, and social notifications.

A "Transactions" section aggregates receipts, orders, and deliveries to make it easy to find orders that you've placed and shipping information for those orders.

In an "Updates" section, you'll find newsletters, alerts for doctor's appointments and correspondence, and subscription emails. A "Promotions" category includes emails with offers and deals.

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

Apple already brought Mail categorization to the iPhone with the iOS 18.2 update, but now it has expanded to the Mac and ‌iPad‌ as well.

Related Forums: iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS Sequoia

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Top Rated Comments

AgeOfSpiracles Avatar
10 months ago
This all seems like a good idea in theory, but in reality it just turns one inbox into four that must be checked anytime you're expecting an email... because the thing just isn't very good at categorizing stuff based on the context.
Score: 53 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Rogifan Avatar
10 months ago
First thing I’ll be turning off on my iPad…
Score: 45 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ChrisMac47 Avatar
10 months ago
Well hopefully one can disable ALL of these new "features"!
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Porco Avatar
10 months ago
I wish I could get rid of the stupid colourful icons at the top of every email.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Roller Avatar
10 months ago

This all seems like a good idea in theory, but in reality it just turns one inbox into four that must be checked anytime you're expecting an email... because the thing just isn't very good at categorizing stuff based on the context.
Yeah, I turned it off quickly when I found some important emails were misclassified. I know you can manually recategorize messages based on the sender, but I haven't tried that yet to see if it improves things.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ghostface147 Avatar
10 months ago
Well Mail never closes on my Mac. I have to force quit every single time.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)