iOS 18.4 fixes annoying usability problem in Apple Mail

Users of the first developer beta of iOS 18.4 report on a small but fine new feature that facilitates the use of Apple Mail on the iPhone. This “Quality of Life” improvement is one of the oldest feature requests in the e-post application on the smartphone at all, reported The Apple Blog 9to5mac. It is about how Apple Mail behaves when messages are deleted or moved to a folder (or the archive) – a usage process that can occur dozens of times every day.

Advertisement

Sort and do not lose reading status

At the moment it is the case that after clicking on the deletion or shift button, you automatically end up in the next message immediately. But you don't necessarily want that, because then it is also marked as read. If you want to restore this status, this must be done manually.

With iOS 18.4 there is now a remedy in the settings of Apple Mail: There you can select the action, which should take place if you have deleted or postponed a message. Apple offers to choose from to keep the previous behavior – i.e. to display the next email immediately – or, and that is new, simply no longer select another message. So you can sort or clean up as you please and keep your reading status. As simple as it sounds, it is so useful when you have to process a lot of emails.

Frustrated users switched to Outlook

There are even former Apple Mail users who have left the app permanently and have switched to competing programs such as Spark or even Outlook in order not to be confronted with the old standard behavior. The new setting can be reached via the system settings and apps and mail. iOS 18.4 will appear in the coming weeks, at the latest in April.

Why Apple is only now incorporating the function is unclear – but it shows that Apple is able to learn if only enough users report to the group. In addition to postings in Apple Support Forumin which Apple employees occasionally stop by, the submission of direct feedback is also worthwhile A separate form. And last but not least, you can also write to Apple managers like Tim Cook, who reads a selection of user emails every day, as he often emphasizes.