How to Manage email notifications

1 See your VIPs

There are two ways to add a person to your VIP list. You can go to the Mailboxes list and tap the ‘i’ icon next to VIP to reveal your VIP list. (If you can’t see VIP, tap Edit, then its row.) Tap Add VIP to add a known contact.

2 Add from email

The second option is to tap Details at the top of a message, tap the sender’s address or name, then tap Add to VIP. This adds the sender to your VIP list without creating a Contacts card, though you can do that too.

3 See what matters

In the Mailboxes list, tap VIP. Here you’ll only see messages from the people on your VIP list. The messages are from your inbox; if you’ve filed VIP emails in other mailboxes, they won’t be shown here.

4 Decide what to do

Now for the fun bit: you can treat your VIP messages differently from other emails. Go to Settings, scroll down to the fifth group (which starts with Accounts & Passwords), tap Mail, then tap Notifications.

5 Select notifications

When Allow Notifications is turned on, below you’ll see a group that lists all of your configured email accounts. Tap into each one and think about at least turning off banners, so you aren’t interrupted by every email.

6 Choose your alert

In the Notifications page, tap VIP. Here you can choose how you’ll be told about new VIP emails — whether your device will play a sound, and whether alerts are displayed on the Lock screen and in Notification Centre.

7 Set the sound

Tap Sounds and set a completely different tone. This means when you hear it you’ll know instantly whether it’s something you need to care about (assuming sounds are enabled for newly received emails in general).

8 Protect your privacy

VIP messages might contain things you don’t want anyone nearby to see. Tap Show Previews and decide whether notifications show the contents of messages all the time, when your device is unlocked, or never.