Apple redesigned the Mail app on iPhones with the release of iOS 18.2 update back in December, but strangely skipped the treatment for iPads and Macs. The company has finally made a course correction with the macOS 15.4 and iPad OS 18.4 developer beta updates, which are now available for testers.
The biggest change introduced by the new Mail app are categories. All your emails are now neatly slotted across four categories. Here’s a brief breakdown of how it works:
- Primary: For personal messages and time-sensitive content.
- Transactions: A section for keeping a tab on confirmation emails, receipts, and shipping-related alerts.
- Updates: All the content that you’ve signed up to receive via an email agreement, such as news, newsletters, and social media updates.
- Promotions: This is the section where you get marketing and shopping material, such as coupons and sales-related notifications.
Apple, however, notes that if any of your emails across the last three categories contain time-sensitive details, they will appear in the Primary bracket. Apple is also taking an approach similar to social media profiles, when you open messages from a specific sender within these three categories.
“When you tap a Transactions, Updates, or Promotions message, a digest view of messages from that sender opens,” says the company. This is a great way to catch up on activities such as alerts from your banking service provider, as you see all your payments neatly slotted in a vertically-scrolling card-like format.
Of course, you can always choose to disable categories and enable the classic list view that shows all your emails in the same order as they landed in your inbox. The idea is neat, as it separates unimportant jargon from relevant communication, but it’s not perfect.
The arrival of the updated Mail experience on iPads and Macs solves a big problem, even though it add some versatility, like letting users create their own categories. iPhones have had the new interface for a while now, and if you got used to it, not having a consistent experience on your Mac or iPad was a bummer.
With the arrival of macOS 15.4 and iPadOS 18.4’s first developer beta updates, there is finally some respite. It’s now only a matter of time before the developer and public beta testing comes to an end, and the overhauled Mail experience is available across the entire mobile and desktop ecosystem.
As far as other AI-powered tricks in the Mail app are concerned, Mac users can also take advantage of email summaries, smart replies, and priority messages.