How to remove Category icons in iOS 18.2 Mail?

Thank you so much for this! The new Icons were driving me nuts!

Thank you rosefromuslter!! Your instructions are extremely clear and I appreciate the time you put in to add to this issue.

My bad! It worked, thank you

Settings > Apps > Mail > Show Contact Photos > OFF

Yes you do, if you look in the right place. Read rosefromulster’s post carefully.

Yes I do!! So glad to get rid of them. Thank you Apple community!!

Thank you!! Despite the actual setting making no sense whatsoever!!! Apple your woeful…how would the action turn off contact photos remove the silly prissy category icons!?!?!? Oh of course it makes sense. NOT. Thank you for posting this tip, hugely appreciated. Unlike the awful UI in this iOS release. Progressive deceleration of evolution..😱😂

BSBTuba wrote:

At the risk of getting threatened again by the powers-that-be for doing nothing more than telling it like it is, unfortunately it’s pretty clear they don’t care. If they did, a good deal of what they broke or otherwise ruined in 18.x & that millions of people have complained about wouldn’t have happened they’d have been reverted, but until that attitude changes expect more of the same.

Where did you get “millions” I’ve only seen complaints from a few hundred who didn’t read the release notes, out of roughly 500 million who either like the new features or don’t care.

This thankfully does turns off the category icons, but why does it say CONTACT PHOTOS? That's just confusing. The icons are annoying as is the new tiny menu bar at the top. I turned that off, too. Simple is most useful.

Lord help us…whatever happened to less is more? A simple, intuitive mail setup has been replaced with a jumbled, multifunction mess. Please give us back the old mail look and feel. I don’t need a shopping cart or any of that other stuff. Who has sent me mail, have I read it already or not? That’s all folks. Thanks.

Thank goodness for the clear advice in this thread. Upvotes for those asking WTH Apple was thinking of when they introduced this feature. It’s the sort of nonsensical, useless feature that I’d associate with Microsoft (think Clutter in Outlook) than from a company that purportedly prioritises UX/UI.

Mountain_Woman wrote:

Apparently they don’t do any Beta testing anymore. I was in an Apple Store a couple years ago asking about a bug introduced in a new update. The employee told me that Apple doesn’t do much testing before updates are sent out. The new strategy is to let the users/us do the testing and find the bugs. Sadly Apple isn’t the company it used to be.

That is absolute nonsense. There are maybe a million beta testers, probably 10% of them are either app developers or “seeded” - volunteers chosen by Apple for their experience. I had the beta of 18.3 about 6 weeks before it was released. I reported a few issues I had found, all of which had been corrected in the GA release. (And the beta of 18.0 3 months before.)

But what does your comment have to do with category icons in the Mail app? They are not a bug, they are a feature. And they can be disabled in Settings/Apps/Mail.

Mountain_Woman wrote:

I was commenting on a post where the writer wondered if any beta testing was being done. I’m very happy to hear that what the Apple employee told me is nonsense!! Thank you for setting the record straight. 

Back to the matter at hand… I also see no point in the annoying icons in the list view and less of a reason for the icons to be in the individual emails. And maybe in the small print somewhere it says that Apple has the right to dig around in my email, but I’m feeling like my privacy has been violated since an AI agent/program had to dig around in my emails in order to decide what stupid icon to attach to each email. 

Apple is not “digging around in your email”. The icons that appear are avatars of the contacts that sent you email or are derived by interpreting words in the subject of the message.

And, if you read the top-rated post at the top of this very page you will see how to turn off the avatars if you don’t want them.

I agree, Apple is spending too much time adding cute little features like this. I'm sure some people love it but it would be so much better if they offered it and if poeple wanted to change it then send those people down this rabbit hole so they can see the little icon. It's similar to the change to photos - I still can't find some of the photos I used to have before they made that non value add change.

I understand Apple has been gutted from a talent perspective - they dump autonomous driving, they AR headset - well that thing speaks for itself especially that pack you have to wear on your side (seriously), they are way behind in AI large language and if you are behind now there is no catching up - the last thing they did well was the iPhone. The watch is doing ok but nothing like the the products they had in the past.

Even connectivity from one Apple device to another is nothing like what the first iPod. It was seemless and that's how they got the industry to change the name of the device from an mp3 player to an iPod.

Even the latest phone - ooooohhhh can you imagine being able to pull your phone out of your pocket and start taking photos without opening the system - how awesome. Tim should have been embarrassed introducing that.

Now back to the matter at hand, trying to find "message list" - more time wasted and more time to think about other brands.

Thank you for this, works perfectly. Annoyingly I just had to go through an even more longwinded process to remove automatic slideshows from Photos albums. Wholeheartedly agree with the comments that wonder who designs the interfaces on these apps. The assumption seems to be that we’re too dim to organise things ourselves.