16 Tips and Tricks to Master The Mail App on Your iPhone

By Dave Johnson - Executive Editor
8 Min Read

Here are our best email tips and tricks to help you get the most out of Apple’s Mail app on your iPhone.

Mail is probably one of the most important apps on your iPhone. You can use it to view and send emails, reply to messages, manage your inbox, and more.

To help you maximize your email productivity, we’ve put together a list of 16 tips and tricks that will help you get the most out of Mail App on your iPhone, and save you valuable time in the process.

Without further ado, here are our best tips and tricks to help you get the most out of Mail app on your iPhone.

Our top 16 best Mail tips and tricks for iPhone

1. Unsend Emails On Mail For iPhone

Have you ever sent an email in haste, only to immediately regret it or realize you’ve said completely the wrong thing? Apparently enough of us have to make Apple add a new Undo Send feature to its Mail app on iPhone.

Thanks to this Apple Mail trick, you now have a grace period to retract an email before it gets sent out. This is nice when you forgot something to include in the email, caught a typo right when you hit send, or perhaps want to change what you wrote, amongst numerous other scenarios where you’d like to unsend an email.

Here’s how to unsend a sent email in the Apple Mail app on iPhone‌:

  1. In the Mail app, if you’ve just sent an email, tap the Undo Send option displayed in blue text at the bottom of the interface in the Mail app. (If the option is not available, your grace period for unsending the email has elapsed.
  2. You will be taken back to the email compose interface, where you can correct any errors in the original email.
  3. Tap the blue arrow when you’re done to send the email.

2. Change Undo Sending Delay On Mail For iPhone

Want to have more (or less) time to unsend an email from Mail app on your iPhone? Well, there’s an Apple Mail trick that lets you change the amount of time that you can undo the sending of an email on iPhone. You’ll have options to turn unsend feature off, 10 seconds, 20 seconds, and 30 seconds.

Many users would benefit from the 30 seconds option, since it gives them a longer period of time to catch a mistake or error and to unsend the email. Here’s where you can make that change:

  1. Start the “Settings” app on your iPhone.
  2. Scroll down and tap on “Mail.”
  3. Locate the Sending section, then tap on “Undo Send Delay.”
  4. Select from one of the following options: Off, 10 seconds, 20 seconds, or 30 seconds.

3. Prevent Emails From Tracking You With Mail Privacy Protection on iPhone

Unsolicited marketing emails will sometimes know whether you’ve opened their email, and if so, when you did so. They can even know where you were at the time, thanks to tracking methods employed by third-party marketing platforms.

To prevent this behavior, Mail Privacy Protection feature on your iPhone hides your IP address and loads all remote content privately in the background, routing it through multiple proxy services and randomly assigning an IP address. Basically, once Mail Privacy Protection feature is enabled on your iPhone, Apple will route your email data through its private servers so that your IP address and personal data aren’t revealed to email marketers.

  1. Start the Settings app on your iPhone.
  2. Scroll down and tap on ”Mail.”
  3. Tap Privacy Protection.
  4. Tap the toggle next to Protect Mail Activity to enable it.

4. Customize The Email Signature on iPhone

By default, every email you send will include the words Sent from my iPhone at the bottom of the message. This is the default email signature for the Mail app. To customize or remove the email signature, follow the steps below:

  1. Start the Settings app on your iPhone.
  2. Scroll down and tap Mail.
  3. Select Signature.

5. Schedule Emails On Mail For iPhone

When you’re ready to send an email that you’ve written, you can schedule a time to send it. It’s simple enough, includes preset options for convenience, and the only requirement is that your iPhone is on at the time you set for the email to be sent. Here’s how you schedule an email for sending later on iPhone.

  1. In the Mail app, compose your email as usual, adding the recipient, sender, subject, and the message contents.
  2. Long press the Send icon (the blue arrow).
  3. Either select one of the preset options that include ”Send Now,” “Send 9:00 PM Tonight,” and “Send 8:00 AM Tomorrow.” If those preset times don’t work for you, you’re able to tap on ”Send Later…” and choose any date or time that you want.
  4. If you opted to Send Later…, use the calendar and time options to schedule when the email should be sent.
  5. Tap Done in the top-right corner of the screen.

6. Use the ‘Follow Up’ Feature On Mail For iPhone

The "Follow Up" feature is designed to move sent email messages to the top of your inbox so you can send a follow-up if you don’t hear back from the person you sent the email to.

This Apple Mail trick is very simple to use, and it can help you to remember to return to certain emails that you otherwise might have forgotten about.

On certain emails in your inbox where you’ve indicated that you’re awaiting a response, you’ll see a ”Follow Up” option. Tapping it will take you to the compose interface with an email addressed to the person that you’re waiting to hear from.

7. Get Email Reminders On Mail For iPhone

If you opened up an email and don’t have the time to respond to it, you can use this Apple Mail trick to make the Mail app to remind you to get back to it later.

Using Remind Me, you can select a date and time for Mail to resurface the message in your inbox, thereby ensuring that you don’t forget about it and nothing goes missing. Here’s how to set up a mail reminder on your iPhone:

  1. In the inbox of the Mail app, tap the email that you’d like to be reminded about later.
  2. Tap the Reply button in the opened email.
  3. Scroll down the options and select Remind Me.
  4. Choose from the pre-set options (Remind Me in 1 Hour, Remind Me Tonight, Remind Me Tomorrow) or tap Remind Me Later… to set a custom date and time to get a reminder to action the email.
  5. Use the calendar and clock to select a date and time, then tap Done.

8. Change Fonts and Formats On Mail For iPhone

This Mail app trick makes it easy to change the formatting of your emails. If you’re composing a new email, tap into the body of your message and tap the arrow icon at the right of the predictive text bar. You will then have a variety of icons that can help you customize your email.

If you tap the Aa icon, you can open the app’s Formatting menu. You will be able to apply attributes like bold, italics, underline, and strikethrough. Tap the small A or large A to make the font bigger or smaller, the circular palette icon to change the color of the text, and Default Font to select a new font.

The formatting menu also allows you to align the current paragraph left, center, or right and add bullets or numbering. You can tap the icon with the right arrow and four horizontal lines to indent the entire paragraph or tap the icon with the left arrow to outdent the paragraph. Indent your current paragraph with vertical quote lines by tapping the icon with three vertical lines, or outdent your current paragraph by tapping the icon with one vertical line.

9. Block a Sender On Mail For iPhone

No longer wish to receive emails from a certain contact? Block them.

  1. Open an unwanted email and tap the name of the sender.
  2. Tap the Block this Contact link.
  3. Tap Block this Contact again in the confirmation message. If you ever change your mind, tap Unblock this Contact.

10. Select Multiple Emails

The Mail app also provides an easy way to select a batch of messages.

  1. Tap the Edit button at the top right of the inbox.
  2. Tap the circle next to the messages you wish to select. You can also select multiple messages by swiping across the circles you wish to select.
  3. Tap Edit > Select All to choose all the messages in the folder.
  4. Once your selections have been made, you can mark, move, or delete/archive all the selected messages in one shot.

11. Search for email in Mail on iPhone

Looking for a specific email on your iPhone? Well, In the Mail app , you can search for emails using different criteria to find the email you want. You’re able to search for text in a message, search according to a certain timeframe, and search by different attributes such as unread emails and flagged emails.

  • Search for text in an email: From a mailbox, swipe down to reveal the search field, tap it, then type the text you’re looking for.
  • Search for emails by date: Type a year, month or specific day in the search field.
  • Find all flagged emails: Enter “flag” in the search field, scroll down, then tap Flagged Messages below Other.
  • Find all unread emails: Enter “unread” in the search field, scroll down, then tap Unread Messages below Other.
  • Find all emails with attachments: Enter “attachment” in the search field, scroll down, then tap Messages with Attachments below Other.

12. Change the Default email Account on Your iPhone

If you do have multiple email accounts logged into your iPhone’s Mail app, the app will automatically choose the one you enter first as the default.

Thankfully, you can easily change your default account to a different email. Here’s how you can change your default email on your iPhone:

  1. Start the Settings app on your iPhone.
  2. Scroll down and tap Mail.
  3. Scroll down again and tap Default Account.
  4. Select the email account you’d like to default to.

13. Shake iPhone to undo trash

This trick is especially useful if you put an email to trash but immediately want it back.

Shake your iPhone from side to side. You will get a pop-up asking you to undo trash. Just hit undo.

14. Convert Emails to PDF Files on iPhone

If you just received a very important email that you want to save, you can keep it as a PDF file on your iPhone using a simple trick. This works with any iPhone, but keep in mind that you won’t be able to access any attached files.

Here’s how you can turn your emails into PDF files:

  1. Start the Mail app on your iPhone.
  2. Tap on the email you want to convert.
  3. Tap on the Reply button at the bottom of your screen (the curved left-pointing arrow).
  4. Scroll down and tap on Print.
  5. Tap on the Share button in the top-left corner of the screen.
  6. Select Save to Files.
  7. Choose a folder where you’d like your PDF file to be saved.

Now you need to go to your Files app, and you’ll be able to open the email as a PDF file. You can also share it or do whatever else you want with it.

The Share button in step 5 only appears in iOS 16 or newer; if you’re running an older iOS version, you’ll need to use two fingers to expand the preview at the bottom of your screen instead, as if you were zooming in on a photo. Then you’ll see the Share button appear at the bottom of the screen.

15. Customize Your Swipe Option

You may have noticed that you can get a bunch of useful buttons just by swiping an email to the left or right. These are your Swipe Options, and you can customize them by doing the following:

  1. Start the Settings app on your iPhone.
  2. Scroll down and tap on Mail.
  3. Scroll down again and select Swipe Options.
  4. Select **Swipe Left **or Swipe Right, depending on which one you want to customize.
  5. Choose the action you want for that particular swipe gesture.

16. Ask Siri to Send Emails for You

One of the coolest Mail tricks on iPhone is to send emails using Siri.

All you need to do is say something like, "Hey, Siri, write an email." Siri will walk you through the process, asking you to whom you want to send the email, what subject line you want to put on it, and then for the text of the message.

After you’re done with that, Siri will ask you if you want to send it. You can either say "send" or "yes," or tap the Send button that appears on your screen. If you say "no," Siri will give you options to change elements of the message, or cancel it if you’ve changed your mind.

You can also dictate an entire email message to Siri in a single sentence. Just say something like, "Hey Siri, send an email to John with the subject hi there and the body are we still on for dinner today."

Master the Mail App on iPhone With These Tips and tricks

Now you know some of the best tips and tricks to help you use Mail app on your iPhone to the fullest. They’re easy to put into practice and you might not have known about them yet! Whats your favorite Apple Mail tips and tricks? Drop a comment and let us know.

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By Dave Johnson Executive Editor
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Dave Johnson is the editor-in-chief at GeeksChalk where he oversees all of site’s evergreen content to ensure it’s up to date with the latest information. Hailing from New Jersey in the US, he has over seven years of experience in the tech journalism space and holds a degree in English Literature. In his spare time, Dave can found checking out the latest video games, immersing himself in his favorite sporting pastime of football, and petting every dog he comes across in the outside world.
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