How to remove Category icons in iOS 18.2 Mail?

Turned off "show contact photos", which worked, and now I obviously see no icons which unexpectedly became an issue for me. I liked icons! But keep it small please. Ended up installing Gmail on my phone and it's been a better solution for now. Goodbye Apple Mail, I'm kinda shocked that Apple rolled this out.

Exactly. I’m so sick of Apple controlling my phone. Like you I don’t want any “categories” and having to work out which category Apple have decided my mail should go in. Agree why can’t I keep my personal icons for my main contacts and just remove these dumb symbols. Does anyone actually find them helpful?!

EJH04 wrote:

Hate category inboxes on Apple Mail! How to get rid of it permanently or do I have find another mail service?

You don't have to choose a different email provider, just a different email app. I've never liked the Apple Mail app. I've been using Spark by Readdle for years. I suspect it wouldn't be the one for you, though, as you don't like categories. But there are lots out there. Lots of people like Outlook.

Thank you, Rose. Following your instructions I was able to turn to turn off Contact list on my iphone 14 and return to the clean Apple Mail screen I like so much. Thank you Apple Support Community for your help on various issues over time.

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.

Bertmadison wrote:

I HATE the new icons. I want to remove them BUT I DONT WANT TO LOSS MY PHOTOS. I worked hard to get photos in my contacts. Any one know how to loose the icons without loosing the photos.

Try reading the thread.

Thank you, Rose, for the simple method to turn off icons. Count me in the dozens (thousands?) of Apple customers who do not want these icons. I wish Apple understood that one of the reasons we use Apple Mail is because we liked the clean, uncluttered look.

On 25 December 2024, Mark_007 showed how to remove those annoying icon that suddenly appeared by every email post update. Unlike other suggestions Mark's works! I thought updates were to fix bugs. Clearly Apple have nothing better to do. Thank you Mark_007 for the best Christmas present ever.

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.

2tattered wrote:

99% don’t read release notes….where do you fit in here?

I’m the 1%, I guess. It did take about 3 minutes, but that’s how I knew about new features in Mail, Photos, Control Center, and many other features, and how to how to configure the apps to work the way I wanted them to.

Is there anyway I can get those little icons out of my mail? I don’t mean just going over to “list” which continues to clutter eye space. If not, on your next OS upgrade, please provide an option to permit the user to have the choice of quiet & EMPTY SPACE !

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. 

csrosenblum wrote:

Is there anyway I can get those little icons out of my mail? I don’t mean just going over to “list” which continues to clutter eye space. If not, on your next OS upgrade, please provide an option to permit the user to have the choice of quiet & EMPTY SPACE !

The answer is in the Top Ranking Reply at the top of this page that you somehow missed, that has gotten over 400 upvotes.

jeanne-sf wrote:

No way this was beta tested. It is irritating as ****.

Beta testing looks for bugs. The changes to Mail add NEW FEATURES. If you don’t want to use those new features just turn them off, as explained dozens of times in the thread that you just posted to.

Have you filed the same complaints with gmail, which has had these features for several years? But with gmail you can’t turn them off.

KTB26July24 wrote:

Thank you - it’s SO irritating when Apple dictate preferences.

Apple hasn’t dictated anything. Apple added new features, and if you don’t like them then turn them off.

They frequently default to turning on new features initially, because unless you are the 1% who read the update notes you would never know they were there.