Apple Mail in iOS 18 introduces on-device email categorization, Smart Replies, and summaries

The Mail app in IOS 18 features email categorization, Smart Replies and summarization

At its annual WWDC on Monday, the company previewed a new Mail feature that enables the on-device categorization of emails, based on their contents. Through machine learning, the built-in Mail app can classify emails into categories such as:

• Primary - which displays time-sensitive messages, emails from people the user might know, and other important information
• Transactions - an email category for receipts and order confirmations
• Updates - which contains newsletters and social media notices
• Promotions - for marketing and sales-related emails

AppleInsider exclusively revealed this new feature, along with other Mail-related improvements, in our report on Project BlackPearl. This was the codename for Apple's new email categorization functionality, made possible by machine learning.

The new on-device email categorization feature gives users a new way of organizing their inboxes and managing incoming emails. This will help users keep track of relevant event-related and time-sensitive information as well.

The Mail app now features an entirely new Digest view, which can display all emails from a specific company, making interactions with these messages significantly easier.

With the Digest view, users will be able to get information about flights from a particular company, for instance. Users will also be able to adjust the email category in which senders appear.

This would help users in situations where the machine learning software incorrectly categorizes an incoming email or multiple emails from a specific business.

Archiving or deleting all messages from businesses will also be possible. According to Apple on-device email categorization and the new Digest view will be available "later this year."

Also coming to Mail is an entirely new response generation feature called "Smart Replies." AppleInsider broke the news on this feature in our exclusive reports on Apple's Ajax LLM and Project Greymatter.

Smart Replies are rolling out as part of Apple's latest AI software dubbed "Apple Intelligence."

In the updated Mail application, users will receive response suggestions based on the content of an email.

Through this new feature, users will be able to RSVP to an event invitation, for instance. The software identifies questions the user was asked in an email and provides options for responses that incorporate relevant answers.

Mail will receive text summarization options in the main inbox view. This means that short summaries containing the most important info from an email will be displayed, rather than the first sentence of a message.

Practically, this means that users will be able to see the most relevant details of different emails in their inbox without even opening them. Users will be able to see information about upcoming meetings or projects through this new feature

Summarization will also be available within individual emails, as Apple's new AI software can display summaries of lengthy messages at the top of the application window. This will be especially useful in time-sensitive situations, where a quick reply is necessary.

Users will also be able to take advantage of the new system-wide Writing Tools within Apple's built-in Mail application. With the new framework, users will be able to proofread and rewrite texts to make them more concise, friendly, or professional.

As mentioned earlier, AppleInsider brought to light many of these features ahead of release, including email categorization, Smart Replies, summarization, and the new Writing Tools framework.

Writing Tools and the new summarization features in Mail are also part of Apple Intelligence. Through this, users will receive enhanced Siri functionality, AI-powered generation with Image Playground, and much more in iPadOS 18 and macOS Sequoia.