It’s Only Available on the iPhone

Perhaps the biggest challenge with Mail Categorization is that it’s an iPhone-only feature for now. It’s not included in iPadOS 18.2 and macOS Sequoia 15.2, and there’s no sign that it’s coming to either platform any time soon.

When Apple unveiled Mail Categories at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) conference in June, it showed it solely as part of the iPhone Mail app. It’s also listed only on its iOS 18 page, which no mention of it as an iPadOS 18 or macOS Sequoia feature. This suggests it’s nowhere on the current roadmap for the iPad or the Mac. It might show up in iPadOS 19 or macOS 16, but we won’t even see the first developer betas of those until June.

So, even if you absolutely love the new Mail Categorization feature, you’ll only be able to use it on the iPhone. Pick up your iPad or open Mail on your Mac, and you’ll be looking at the same old linear inbox with everything in one place.

On your iPhone, you’ll have a nice, clean Primary inbox that shows only the most essential stuff. Even if two dozen other emails have come in, your most recent important messages will be at the top. Switch to your iPad or your Mac, and you’ll often have to scroll down to find those same messages listed at the top of your iPhone Mail app since all of your categorized emails will be in the same inbox.

This arguably isn’t a huge problem, and the iPhone is the ideal place to start with this feature, as it’s more important to filter mail when you’re on the go. Still, I found the inconsistency a bit jarring, and I often found I was reaching for my iPhone to check my Primary category and then manually flagging messages there so I could easily pull them on my Mac.