iOS 18.4 fixes annoying usability problem in Apple Mail
For years, Apple's popular Mail app on the iPhone has exhibited annoying behavior when returning from the delete/move menu. But now Apple is taking pity.
Apple Mail on an iPhone: No more unwanted mails marked as read.
(Image: hilalabdullah / Shutterstock)
Users of the first developer beta of iOS 18.4 are reporting a small but nice new feature that makes it easier to use Apple Mail on the iPhone. This “Quality of Life” improvement is one of the oldest feature requests ever in the e-mail application on smartphones, reports the Apple blog 9to5Mac. It concerns the way Apple Mail behaves when messages are deleted or moved to a folder (or archive) – a usage process that can occur dozens of times a day.
Sorting and not losing read status
Currently, clicking on the delete or move button automatically takes you to the next message. However, this is not necessarily what you want, as it is then immediately marked as read. If you want to restore this status, you have to do it manually.
Videos by heise
With iOS 18.4, there is now a remedy in the Apple Mail settings: there, you can select the action that should take place when you have deleted or moved a message. Apple offers the choice of retaining the previous behavior – i.e., displaying the next mail immediately – or, and this is new, simply not selecting any more messages. So you can sort or tidy up as you wish and keep your reading status. As simple as this sounds, it is very useful if you have a lot of emails to process.
Frustrated users switched to Outlook
There are even former users of Apple Mail who have left the app permanently and switched to competing programs such as Spark or even Outlook to avoid having to deal with the old default behavior. The new setting can be accessed via the system settings and Apps and Mail. iOS 18.4 will be released in the coming weeks, in April at the latest.
It is unclear why Apple is only adding the function now – but it shows that Apple is capable of learning if only enough users contact the company. In addition to postings in the Apple Support Forum, where Apple employees occasionally drop by, it is also worth submitting direct feedback via a dedicated form. And finally, you can also write to Apple managers such as Tim Cook, who reads a selection of user emails every day, as he often emphasizes.
Empfohlener redaktioneller Inhalt
Mit Ihrer Zustimmung wird hier ein externer Preisvergleich (heise Preisvergleich) geladen.
Ich bin damit einverstanden, dass mir externe Inhalte angezeigt werden. Damit können personenbezogene Daten an Drittplattformen (heise Preisvergleich) übermittelt werden. Mehr dazu in unserer Datenschutzerklärung.
(bsc)
