How to get more from Apple Mail
1 Use special mailboxes
At the list of all your mailboxes, tap Edit. You can now manage which mailboxes will be visible – including several contextual ones, which are handy for quickly getting at recent or unread email, and messages with attachments.
2 Filter a mailbox
When browsing a mailbox, tap the filter button (bottom left). By default, this will filter the current mailbox to show unread emails. But tap the description (‘Unread’ at first) and you can adjust the criteria – say, to add flagged messages.
3 Search by term
At the top of each mailbox pane is a search field – pull down if you don’t see it. As you search, Mail displays matching messages, but also links to people and subjects – a fast way to get to deeply buried messages!
4 Designate VIPs
The VIP mailbox enables fast access to messages from important contacts. To set someone as a VIP, open one of their messages, tap their name, then tap ‘Add to VIP’. In Settings, you can set Mail to show email notifications only for VIPs.
7 Batch process
Above the messages, tap Edit, then tap those you want to mark/move/delete and tap an action at the bottom. On iPad, you can move items faster: hold a finger on one, then tap others; go to another mailbox and drop the messages there.
10 Get swiping…
Use gestures to perform actions on messages in a mailbox. Swipe right to mark an item unread/read. Swipe left for Archive/Delete, Flag, and More (which leads to Reply, Forward, Mark, Notify Me, and Move Message).
5 Rapidly unsubscribe
Inundated with messages from mailing lists? Mail can detect the presence of an unsubscribe link, saving you having to look for it. Tap Unsubscribe (at the top of the message) and follow the process to leave the list.
8 Peek behind a message
When replying to someone, the compose sheet sits above the app. To refer to another email, drag down on the New Message heading to tuck the sheet at the bottom of the screen. Tap it there to bring it back and continue writing.
11 Create a signature
By default on iOS, your email signature will be ‘Sent from my iPad/ iPhone’. This can be changed in Settings > Mail. Under the Composing heading, tap Signature. You can set different signatures for each account.
6 Save attachments
By default, Mail doesn’t download all attachments, and tap to Download will only download the attachment to Mail. To save a downloaded copy elsewhere, hold a finger on it, then select a location or app from the Share sheet.
9 In-progress messages
With several emails tucked down, tap there and you’ll get an overview from which to pick one to continue writing. If you’ve saved messages to your Drafts folder instead, hold a finger on the compose icon to retrieve from there.
12 Adjust previews
Explore the other options in Settings > Mail. Under Message List, you can adjust how many lines of a message are included in the preview; and there are many other preferences, including for how message threads are displayed.