Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Mail on iPad with iOS 18.2 missing mail categories?
- Thread starter jon9091
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I’m just shocked (not) that Apple doesn’t keep features in line on all devices. I mean….it took 15 years for iPad calculator after all
Wow, yeah, this is a bizarre discrepancy; why would I want my mail managed completely differently across two devices using the same app? This is downright boneheaded.
Same. This was the main feature I was excited about and now I find out it’s not on 2/3 on my devices. Madness.
After over 23 years with Apple I’m seriously considering leaving. They have lost sight of their original mission since TC in charge - it’s continual disappointment. The mail app has always been been poor but now this. Apple AI - either do it properly or don’t bother, what a complete and utter piece of garbage🗑️. My iPad Pro not that exciting and apps continually lose their screen settings/UI (mail being the worst culprit). And not producing a larger iMac when the demand and expectation for one was clearly evident for months and months was a huge mistake. I was forced into the 24 iMac and it is the most underwhelming experience I have had with any Apple product.
If I don't want to use categories can you get rid of the icons next to each message in your inbox? I see how to go to list view but the icons stay on each message!
I too am curious why mail categories is not part of iPadOS. I like the feature sometimes. What would the rationale be for not including this feature on the iPad?
Also, there’s no need to turn off the feature, I’ve discovered. You can have “Categories” display without categories but tapping on a Category again and an “All Categories” tab will come up. So for example, let’s say you have “Categories” turned on and you’re in the Primary categories view. To go back to see all email without categories, you don’t have to turn off the view; just tap again on Primary and it’ll now take you to All Categories. Hopefully that makes sense.
I’m in the camp of liking Categories sometimes and sometimes not liking it. In other words, I like to have BOTH available so instead of going up and down to turn on and off that feature, I use the above method to go back and forth between views.
Also, there’s no need to turn off the feature, I’ve discovered. You can have “Categories” display without categories but tapping on a Category again and an “All Categories” tab will come up. So for example, let’s say you have “Categories” turned on and you’re in the Primary categories view. To go back to see all email without categories, you don’t have to turn off the view; just tap again on Primary and it’ll now take you to All Categories. Hopefully that makes sense.
I’m in the camp of liking Categories sometimes and sometimes not liking it. In other words, I like to have BOTH available so instead of going up and down to turn on and off that feature, I use the above method to go back and forth between views.
Apple Intelligence is still in beta, and Apple made it pretty clear that it might take a while for some features to arrive. I am sure that Apple has a lot more iOS users than iPadOS and MacOS users, and the mail apps are quite different on all three platforms, so I think it's fair to let them prioritize iOS for this, and then work on iPad and Mac later.
That said, perhaps Apple would have been better off if they had not been so specific about the features coming with Apple Intelligence when it was announced in June - maybe it would have been better to be less specific so people's expectations were lower rather than higher.
That said, perhaps Apple would have been better off if they had not been so specific about the features coming with Apple Intelligence when it was announced in June - maybe it would have been better to be less specific so people's expectations were lower rather than higher.
I am enjoying Apple Intelligence so far. Really wish I'd had this when I was still working!!!!
Context: get about 75-100 emails/day, most of which are undesirable. After the iOS v18 upgrade, my emails had self-categorized. A little bit of panic later, I found out how to turn off the categorization “feature” and now all is well again.
Thanks for the correction. Unfortunately many of use our Macs for listening to music.
Coming from gmail, i like inbox categorization too! I’ll say i like Apple’s better. Apple is getting closer to me removing gmail completely with recent adds. I’m back to using the mail app for gmail and testing out iCloud mail. Long time apple user here as well. I will say, it’s perplexing we don’t get the option on Mail app for macOS and iPadOS.
With that many emails, i love inbox categorization lol It’s one of my favorite features about gmail that I’m glad apple is doing and I even liking the naming and sorting convention better in mail app. Perplexing not available in ipad or macOS though. I like categorization so it filters out that white noise and not a constant need to check for emails.
I have been meaning to try to get off of Gmail. I suppose a main issue is how many things I have connected to Gmail including that my social network all use my Gmail.
Same here! All my stuff is connected to Gmail along with having YouTube TV, YouTube Premium, YouTube Music, Google Family so we can share it all. Everything else (and we are an Apple Family) is in the Apple Ecoysystem - Notes, calendar, music, photos, movies, Apple TV, iCloud Drive, etc., just not email, calendar and contacts since I like those to be the same. Even my gmail is my primary Apple ID lol I just recently changed my Hide My Emails to deliver to my iCloud vs gmail address. So we'll see how that goes over time lol
