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The iOS 18.2 release from Apple in December 2024 introduced on-device email categorization. Google implemented this in Gmail in 2013.
Gmail assigns a category to every email, which you can change. This also means that more emails may find their way to spam or other unintended tabs and be missed by the recipient. Apple is doing this on iPhones and iPads but not on desktops yet.
To prevent your emails from being left on unread, you must ensure your emails meet proper criteria, and your audience takes action on your emails.
What’s new with iOS 18.2 release
What you can do to stay in the inboxes
While you’re at it, fix Gmail too
Useful resources
TL;DR
What’s new with the iOS 18.2 release
Apple Mail will now categorize emails into four distinct tabs, very similar to Gmail:
Primary: Messages from people you know and time-sensitive communications.
Transactions: Receipts and order confirmations.
Updates: Newsletters and social media notifications.
Promotions: Sales and marketing emails.
By default, messages will automatically sort into these tabs. However, users will have the ability to adjust the categorization manually. Notably, this feature will only apply to Apple Mail on iOS, leaving desktop users unaffected for now.
There are two additional new features:
Digest View: Apple will group messages from the same sender into a single view, making it easier for users to browse, archive, or delete emails.
Summaries: Before opening an email, users will see a short AI-generated summary of its contents, with the option to tap 'Summarize' for lengthy emails.
What you need to do
This change shouldn’t pose a threat to legitimate email senders.
Maintain a Good Sender Reputation: Follow best practices like permission-based marketing, double opt-in, and avoiding spam triggers.
Ensure Proper Authentication: Use SPF, DKIM, and DMARC protocols to authenticate your emails, which helps prevent them from landing in spam folders.
Focus on Content Quality: Send relevant, high-quality content that your subscribers want to receive. This will help ensure your emails remain engaging and valuable.
Let your audience know. Gmail users have known for 11 years that they must tell the platform where to put their mail. For example, many turned off their Promotions tab because legitimate emails were captured. Tell your audience to move emails from you to the Primary tab.
Practice list hygiene: As bounces, unsubscribes, and spam complaints all impact engagement and, ultimately, where your emails land, ensure you consistently keep your list clean and up-to-date.
Test Placement: Test where your mail lands and try to understand why Apple is placing it there.
Give AI something to talk about: Now that AI will summarize the email for readers, some of your content may be overlooked. Organize your content to make it clear to AI what should be included in a summary.
If you want to get fancy, register your email as Apple Branded. This will allow you to add a brand name and logo to your business email. However, this only applies to a company domain. You can't do this if you still use @gmail.com, @outlook, etc. Please take this as a sign to purchase a company domain name for your email.
While you’re at it, fix Gmail too.
The information in Postmaster Tools helps you meet Gmail’s requirements for sending emails to personal Gmail accounts. Use Postmaster Tools to monitor information about outgoing emails you send to personal Gmail accounts and the domains and IP addresses you use to send emails.
Once you verify your domains, you can track information about your email domain, like how often it was reported as spam. Most importantly, it will show your compliance status.
⚠️ An honor unsubscribe requirement is coming soon, where Google will track if you removed a subscriber from your list within ten business days of their request.
✅ Put the Gap Dēmĭstəfīed in your Primary tab. ✅
Since we’re at it, be sure to put The Gap Dēmĭstəfīed in your Primary tab by either dragging it to Primary or categorizing it directly as Primary. You don’t want to miss a thing. But remember, you can always find the archive at gapdemystified.com.
USEFUL RESOURCES
Authenticating your email information
TL;DR - Apple is updating how iPhones manage email. They’ve added categorization tabs that may put your email in a place where your reader won’t see it. Take action to ensure that doesn’t happen and also fix your Gmail compliance.
What’s new with iOS 18.2 release - like Gmail did in 2013, Apple is implementing categorization on iPhone and iPad, but not on desktop machines yet. This may cause your emails to be placed where your audience will no longer see them.
What you can do to stay in the inboxes - there’s not much to do except continue to practice or implement good email list hygiene. Also, if you don’t have a dedicated domain, you should consider acquiring one. This helps verify and authenticate your email.
While you’re at it, fix Gmail, too - You should also take advantage of Google’s Postmaster Tool to ensure you’re in compliance. Google is very particular about its email authentication.
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