How to remove Category icons in iOS 18.2 Mail?

M5mfx wrote:

There is no ‘Message List’

• Open mail
• Tap on an email account
• Look at the upper right for this: ⋯⃝
• Tap on it
• Tap on List View

Yeah me too.

"Can the icons be removed from list view so that I can just see a normal/clean email inbox?"

I have my own categorising system which works better so the icons in list view are just wasting space on my iPhone screen.

I think the Category view is a good thing for some people but for _leefy and me any new display feature like this needs to have an "off" button.

Who thinks of this stuff? Does Apple ever run Beta testing with actual people? I think not. The only vaguely positive concept with the new email categories is the choice between Primary and All Mail. But then I have to try to ignore the shopping cart, promotions and the like. I will just go back to the pre ios 18.2 view.

Thank you very much for that info. I was pretty put off by the look, colors, and pointlessness of the icons in the new mail app (along with many other users, apparently) but couldn't get any useful info from Siri on how to either change their color or get rid of them altogether. I assumed that the "show contact photos" button had something to do with the photos of folks in your contacts list being visible when you get emails from them. I never would have guessed that was the way to get rid of those annoying icons! Thanks again👍

Hello, _leefy!

With 18.2 introduction of category inboxes in apple mail, even when selecting list view (top three dots in mail app) to return it to the old format, you still have the annoying new icons representing the categories in front of each email. I'm selecting 'list view' because I don't want to use 'categories' at all. Can the icons be removed from list view so that I can just see a normal/clean email inbox?

If you are referring to categories, you can turn them off by going to the Inbox view in Mail, then tapping the button on the top right of the screen:

Then, choose List View.

Reference: Use categories in Mail on iPhone - Apple Support

If you are referring to the contact photos, you can do what rosefromulster said and go to Settings > Apps > Mail and go to Message List, then switch Show Contact Photos off.

I hope this helps!

While at it, can you completely revert to the old system? I hate having the 3 dots on the outside where you used to hit “select” to mass delete emails by selecting a bunch at once. Now I’m constantly hitting the dumb “categories” option. Who on God’s green earth is their UI/UX designer at Apple anyway?

This bites. I like having the icons of people / businesses I know and have in my contacts. Now I have to get rid of those just because Apple made these dumb categories? Categories should be an option IF you want the annoying thing. Don’t screw with my mailbox where I’m going to miss emails because THEY think this is a great and useful idea. Hardly the case.

Remove Top Category:- Three More Button > List View.

Remove icons next to Each Email:- Settings app > Apps > Mail > Disable "Show Contact List"

I found the solution online from this source.

Thanks! What a numbskull idea. Does Apple think its users are such nitwits we can’t even figure out what kinds of emails we get unless they give us cute little icons? Unbelievable…. just focus on the functionality (and pricing ) please and thank you.

Thank you for this solution.

Apple PLEASE stop introducing “features” I do not want. If anything, let people “opt in” to them instead of enabling them by default and forcing all users to scramble to disable. Please.

Even after switching back to list view I notice there is background “categorizing” going on. I imagine this is using up processing power and I can see it slowing down my other mail features like search, general scrolling, etc. it’s also performing what Apples algorithms determine are how my emails should be categorized, which many have already pointed out are completely inaccurate and annoying.

This feature reminds me of when spotlight reads and tags all data on a Mac computer. There needs to be an option to disable this feature. This is our data in devices we pay tremendous prices for. Give us control or we will find better options to these lame ideas and products.

This has already been posted dozens of times in this thread, but to save you the trouble of looking for it:

To remove the icons in the list view:

• Open Settings
• Tap Apps
• Tap Mail
• Turn off Show Contact Photos (in the Message List block)
• Optionally, turn off Summarize Message Previews

To turn off Categories:

• Open the Mail app
• Tap on each Inbox
• Tap on ⋯⃝ in the upper right 
• Tap to check List View

These 2 steps will return the Mail app to the way it previously worked.

I have spent years getting my mail just how I want to use it. I use different accounts for different categories with spam going into one account making it easy to delete or block. I also liked showing icons of people and companies that I use all the time. Now I have to turn them off because Apple decided to mix all my accounts up into these awful categories and icons. I’m not at all happy about this. Instead of adding a useful feature they have removed one.

Maybe just look for this, I don’t have an iPhone 16

Maybe just look for this, I don’t have an iPhone 16