Another Organizaing mailboxe failue - Am I "mailing it wrong"?

[matsan]

Just updated to iOS 18.2 and immediately turned of the categorization "feature" in Mail after seeing the result in my mailbox. As this is the fourth failed attempt by vendors (Microsoft in Outlook, Google in Gmail and Apple in macOS Mail.app) to "help" me organize my inboxes I'm starting to believe I'm "Mailing it wrong".
In my inboxes (four - AWS Work Mail, Outlook 365 and 2 GMail) the Conversation view fails all the time. None of my inboxes manage to keep up with longer conversations (10-15 mails) in English, German and Swedish. It breaks-down completely as people start CC:ing in other people in a thread, a typical work-situation. Random mails end up outside of conversations making the feature 100% useless.
Gmail attempted the same categorization some time ago and it failed in similar ways like Apple's attempt now and I quickly disabled it for the same reasons as I disabled it now in 18.2 - the categorization is so random and error-prone it's useless.

Clearly it must be me "mailing it wrong", right? All these great vendors can't fail, can they?

 

[Sir Ruben]

I turned the categorization off straight away along with the annoying icons next to emails that serve no purpose other than taking up too much space on an iPhone screen. Both new features are unnecessary distractions.

 

[rotlex]

I turned the categorization off straight away along with the annoying icons next to emails that serve no purpose other than taking up too much space on an iPhone screen. Both new features are unnecessary distractions.

First thing I did after turning off categorization as well. What the heck were they thinking with the icon thing? Made my inbox look like an app that was made for pre schoolers.

 

[Firestorm007]

How do you turn it off? I can’t get rid of the stupid icons! Luckily they don’t seem to be on my iPad.

 

[matsan]

How do you turn it off? I can’t get rid of the stupid icons! Luckily they don’t seem to be on my iPad.

General - Apps - Mail - Show Contact Photos

 

[Firestorm007]

General - Apps - Mail - Show Contact Photos

Phew! Thank you!

 

[matsan]

Phew! Thank you!

Like everything Apple these days - add a feature no-one requested and a setting to turn it off... sigh...

 

[Sir Ruben]

First thing I did after turning off categorization as well. What the heck were they thinking with the icon thing? Made my inbox look like an app that was made for pre schoolers.

What's worse is that most of mine just showed their default image. I think only Uber had a proper contact picture with a logo. So most of the time I just had these default icons next to each mail which had zero benefit.

 

[achappy]

I've actually grown to like the icons because for legitimate businesses they have to go through some sort of certification process before the icon shows up. When I first got on 18.2, there were few but now I have significantly more. So I'm hoping as time goes on more icons will show up.

So for me, it's an easy way to see emails from Amazon, my banks, ebay and my contacts.

 

[DomC]

I wish Apple had spent their time making Smart Mailboxes I’ve created for iCloud mail (on the desktop) appear and sync between devices instead. Which essentially function as my own Category setup.

 

[steve62388]

I could see some use in being able to create your own categories with the same interface, then categorise stuff manually with a combination of AI. But as far as I can tell you can't edit the categories and sometimes you would want AI to step in, eg if you buy tickets you want those to go to a category named tickets/transport/concerts/whatever, but the rubbish advertising can be categorised elsewhere.

Until this feature improves I have turned it off.

 

[SkippyThorson]

General - Apps - Mail - Show Contact Photos

THANK YOU!!!

First thing I did after turning off categorization as well. What the heck were they thinking with the icon thing? Made my inbox look like an app that was made for pre schoolers.

Spot on; it was an atrocious waste of space. Like the tops of apps when the iPhone X launched; layers of blank space with one word / text line in them, if even that.