With iOS 18.5 launching this week, the dust has well and truly settled on Apple’s inbox update. What began as a ripple of curiosity back in iOS 18.2 has now become a daily habit for millions of iPhone users: with tabs labelled Primary, Transactions, Updates and Promotions, each one promising a more purposeful scroll.
So, 6 months in, how's it looking for email marketers?
Inside Apple’s four tabs
Apple’s Mail app now filters your emails into four categories displayed as tabs at the top of the inbox. Here’s a quick rundown of each category and what goes into them:
- Primary: Personal messages and anything Apple deems “important” or time-sensitive (think emails from friends, family, or urgent confirmations).
- Transactions: Receipts, order confirmations, shipping notices, all those purchase-related emails now live here for easy access. So, no more digging through your inbox for that tracking number!
- Updates: This is home for newsletters, news alerts, and social media updates. If you send a weekly newsletter or an account update, it’ll likely land under Updates by default.
- Promotions: As the name suggests, this tab gathers marketing and sales emails – discount offers, coupons, promos from brands, etc. Basically, it’s Apple’s version of the “Offers” pile.
Inbox déjà vu
If this sounds familiar, you’re not wrong, Apple’s new inbox layout is very similar to Gmail’s tabbed inbox system. Gmail pioneered this idea back in 2013 with tabs like Primary, Social, Promotions (and later Updates and Forums).
Apple’s take is along the same lines: important personal emails separated from marketing blasts and newsletters. One difference is Apple’s category names: instead of a “Social” tab, Apple uses “Updates” (which covers newsletters and social updates together).
The twist? Apple also explicitly added a “Transactions” tab for things like receipts. The concept, however, is the same, your inbox gets sorted so that similar types of emails stick together.
For users, this can be helpful: it declutters the main inbox view and makes it easier to find specific kinds of messages. Apple’s Mail app even lets users reassign categories manually (just like dragging an email to a different Gmail tab). If a user wants your emails in Primary instead of Promotions, they can categorise your sender address accordingly, and all future emails from you will go to the chosen tab. And of course, users can ignore the tabs by viewing “All Mail” or turning categories off entirely if they prefer one big list.
How to turn off apple and gmail email tabs?
If Apple’s or Gmail’s shiny new tabs feel less like organisation and more like extra taps, you can switch back to a single-stream inbox in under a minute.
On Apple: open Mail, step into any inbox, and tap the ••• More button at the top-right. A tiny menu slides up, choose List View and the Primary/Transactions/Updates/Promotions buttons vanish on that device. You’ll need to repeat the tweak on each iPhone, iPad or Mac you own, because Apple stores the setting locally rather than in iCloud.
Gmail is just as simple, though you’ll need to pop open a browser:
- Sign into Gmail on a computer.
Click the gear icon, then See all settings → Inbox. - In the “Inbox type” section, untick Social, Promotions, Updates and Forums until only Primary is left. Save, and you’re done.
That desktop change syncs automatically to the Gmail app on your phone, so there’s no separate mobile toggle to hunt for. Prefer a halfway house? Leave just Promotions checked giving you a single, tidy spot for deals while the rest of your inbox stays wide-open.
Will the promotions tab bury your campaign?
Marketers asked the same question in 2013, and the point never arrived. Open-rate studies that followed Gmail’s rollout showed engaged subscribers barely blinked; the people who ignored email before simply ignored it in a different place.
What changed was browsing behaviour: So, showing up in the “Promotions” tab isn’t the end of the road, it’s simply another entrance to your audience.
Surveys show that nearly eight in ten Gmail users who keep tabs turned on open Promotions at least once a week. Follow-up studies after Gmail’s rollout found that revenue per email barely budged, because subscribers who already valued a brand simply looked for it in the new layout.
Apple’s stated goal is to help users “find and manage messages more quickly”. A happier, less cluttered inbox could mean users are less overwhelmed and more likely to engage with emails in each category when they have the time.
Some experts even suggest this change could increase the time users spend in their inbox overall. If your emails are relevant and wanted, they’ll now appear in an environment curated for that type of content, possibly boosting their chance of being read in a focused moment.
Your playbook for the tabbed inbox era
Tabs aren’t out to ruin your open rates, they’re out to rescue readers from inbox chaos. Apple and Gmail have simply carved the inbox into clearly-labeled rooms, and our job as senders is to make sure we’re welcome in whichever room a subscriber walks into.
And remember, the new layout is a preference, not a requirement: users can re-categorise you, favourite you, or turn the whole feature off with a couple of taps. Simply embrace the change and you’ll meet your audience right where they want you.
If you’re looking to boost your inbox performance, contact us today.
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