My emails are going to the promotions folder after iOS 18.2 update

The 18.2 update has totally ruined email. It is making it impossible to know if I am seeing all my essential emails as it is categorizing them in a very confusing way. If I am travelling or at work without access to my desktop -I am definitely going to miss important emails. I hate this feature and cannot find a way to opt out of it.

This worked for me

Turn off categories

Tip: You can quickly view all emails in an inbox. Swipe left on the categories at the top of the inbox to open All Mail.

1. Go to the Mail app  on your iPhone.
2. In an inbox, tap  at the top of the screen, then choose List View.

Ok. Here’s the problem. Which, by the way, isn’t solved by your suggestion to just “turn them off”.

1. On the homescreen, the Mail icon shows there are (for example) 3 messages.
2. You touch the Mail icon to reveal your list of email addresses. Some people have one email address. Other people, like myself, have multiple email addresses. There should now be a number next to any address that contains new mail. Even if the new mail is in one account or different email accounts, the total should be 3 to correspond with the number on the homescreen.
3. The problem is, it isn’t. There is either no number next to any email account or if there is it is the wrong number. You have to open each email account to find the new mail. So you are required to Hunt The Email. Not a great feature.

I have spoken to Apple about this glitch but so far no fix.

I’m having the same email inbox issues and I’ve turned off categories and it’s still continuing. Very frustrating until they find a fix.

Mine are split across 4 folders none of which are helpful and not correctly allocated even if I did want this which I don’t. Who do they think they are forcing their changes on me in something which should be entirely my own choice??!! 😡😡 I can’t find a way to get rid of it and dislike it hugely. Takes ages now to find and do anything with emails and I can’t even move email from one useless category to Primary. Plus my settings are already at “no thread” but it always threads everything. Useless! Disastrous and may well force me to change away from Apple.

Hi Lurch. Whether they’re POP or not I don’t see why it doesn’t work now when it worked before the update. Before 18.2 I would;

1 Look at Homescreen.

2 See number of new emails in the Mail icon (eg 4)

3 Touch the Mail icon

4 See my list of email addresses (seven of them)

5 To the right of any of these individual accounts with new unread email there would be a number

6 The total number would be, as in this example, 4. That might be 4 in the same account or 2 in one account, 1 in another and 1 in another.

Now, there is either no number next to any of these accounts or it is the wrong number. Consequently I have to open each account individually in order to find all of the 4 messages indicated on the Homescreen.

it never used to do this!

Doesn’t work. I logged in to one of my accounts on safari and had 188 unread emails. I never have unread emails. I check regularly. The iPhone mail app still hasn’t updated to what is on safari and I changed the password and updated it in the mail app. More apple fails on iOS 18.2… I’ve been using iPhone since the 3g and I’m ready to go android

I had this issue as well where the number of unread emails doesn’t match what’s underneath. What may fix the issue is not just removing categories and list view when under “All Inboxes” but doing the same thing individually for each underlying email account. Once I did it for all three of my email accounts, it seems to match up.

You can learn more about categories in Mail here and even turn them off if you wish.

Use categories in Mail on iPhone - Apple Support

Many people don't like updates and you see complaints after every one of them. You also see complaints when there are no updates or features added, so I guess either way complaints are expected.

Found it! I didn’t see it in the thread but maybe I missed it.

After you move each Mail Account from “categories” to “list”, show ALL email count by the following:

Settings>Notifications>Mail>Customize Notifications

Toggle how you prefer!

or at least this now looks like the previous version. Will have to wait and see on Monday if it works officially.

MASICHICK wrote:

The 18.2 update has totally ruined email. It is making it impossible to know if I am seeing all my essential emails as it is categorizing them in a very confusing way. If I am travelling or at work without access to my desktop -I am definitely going to miss important emails. I hate this feature and cannot find a way to opt out of it.

Turn off categorization: Open Mail, tap on the ⋯⃝ in the upper right, and check List View.

Nope. One of the first things Apple told me to try. Still doesn’t work.

Categories is turned off and still nothing. If I log into my mail in safari I have “x” emails. I typically get 10-20 a day, but in the mail app my most recent email was Friday. Also since the update iTunes isn’t syncing properly. All my music that wasn’t purchased from iTunes isn’t syncing properly.

Lurch1977 wrote:

Doesn’t work. I logged in to one of my accounts on safari and had 188 unread emails. I never have unread emails. I check regularly. The iPhone mail app still hasn’t updated to what is on safari and I changed the password and updated it in the mail app. More apple fails on iOS 18.2… I’ve been using iPhone since the 3g and I’m ready to go android

Are you using a POP or IMAP email account? If it is a POP email account, they do not update the read emails on the different platforms. For example, I have an Xfinity POP account and reading or even deleting them in the Web Mail portal does not reflect the changes when accessing in the Mail app on the device. That is how it is supposed to work. Only an IMAP email account will update across devices/platforms.

You can check the type of mail account by going to Settings > Apps > Mail, and choose the email account to see if it shows POP email or IMAP email server settings.

Lcarrow wrote:

After this update my mail icon on iPhone now doesn’t show anything. It’s ok on iPad but if I’m just looking at my phone I would think I have no email…when I do.

I did kinda figure out how to get rid of the categories. Still irritating but at least I found missing emails. Not a happy camper.

This should help. As stated before you have a lot more customization options and it can be tailored to exactly how you want it. Unfortunately is it the customization options that cause the most confusion and previously it was a big complaint that you could not customize things on an iPhone like you are able to do on other platform. There are 2 settings that you will want to check:

• Go to Settings > Apps > Mail > Notifications > Custom Notifications. Tap the email account you want as you can customize each one, then make sure Badges is turned on. The alert option is to change the sound that is played when you get new email.
• Go to Settings > Apps > Mail > Notifications > Custom Notifications. Under the Badge Count, make sure you have chose All Unread Messages. When using categories, you can specify just your Primary Email account, but choosing All Unread Messages is probably what you are looking for.

Customize your Mail notifications on your iPhone or iPad - Apple Support