Tech Tip: Apple Intelligence and Mail

by Michael DeVincenzo, Collection Development and Adult Programming Librarian

Apple’s latest iOS versions include a major update, the beta launch of Apple’s AI product, Apple Intelligence.

First, it should be noted that Apple Intelligence can only run on the following models: all iPhone 16 models, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max. Older iPhones will still receive the latest iOS update, but it will NOT contain Apple Intelligence.

Apple Intelligence makes many changes to how the basic Apps of the iPhone function, but we will focus on Mail. The biggest change is that the default Inbox view used to simply show all of your mail in the order it was received, but now the AI presorts your email by default into categories. Emails the AI deems important or time sensitive, it categorizes as “Primary”, and they appear immediately when you open Mail. However, all other emails are sent to presorted categories like “Updates”, “Promotions”, “Transactions” etc.

Your next question is probably: Can the I turn off AI presorting in Mail and go back to the way the Inbox used to be presented? The answer is yes, but you have to tap on the three dots in the upper right corner of the Mail app, and select “list view”.

Something else to keep in mind is the red badge on your Mail app that shows how many emails are currently unread. That number will now reflect not the your total unread emails, but only unread emails that are categorized as Primary. So the number on the red badge and the number of unread emails in total will no longer match.

Finally, if you want to turn off Apple Intelligence altogether, you can do so by tapping on Settings, then Apple Intelligence and Siri, and moving the slider to off.

Here is the link to the full details on Apple Intelligence: https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/get-started-with-apple-intelligence-iphc28624b81/ios

And another support article focused on just on Mail: https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/use-apple-intelligence-in-mail-iph9ae667055/18.0/ios/18.0