Mail practically unusable after 18.2 - is it possible to revert update?

The display of emails is awful. I do not want the app deciding which messages to display. I want my unread messages displayed in my inbox by date along with new message. Apple has taken a simple application that's worked just fine and made it a nightmare. I've missed several bill payments because apple thinks it knows a better way to display my mail. How can I restore the old settings.

Mail is a nightmare after the 18.2.1 upgrade! Apple, fix this!

Apple the U S Post office thanks you for the last update. You have made mail app so useless that people will go back to paper snail mail as the better more efficient alternative. Does anyone actually test these upgrades before unleashing them on the public? How can we go back?

Categories View is useless and you can choose List view under the three dots, but it reversed the setting next day.

I use List View as a timeline and don't need the photo widget either - only relevant and informative text.

If Apple screw this up in lack of useful ideas, I'm out.

Can I Upvote this ten times? LOL. It's so helpful!

As of 2/26/25, the most recent update is terrible. While categories can be turned off, I find that I still have missing messages. Sincerely wish there was an option to turn this new feature off entirely OR have it TRULY SHOW ALL MAIL rather than pretend to show all mail…only for me to have important emails missing that i find in my individual email account. please, Apple, stop fixing what really isnt broken.

I hate the new mail app update as well. On the phone the new icons are so big that you can barely see any of the address or subject line so it’s impossible to quickly delete spam and things you don’t need. I am so frustrated.

You are equating “different” and “terrible”. They are not the same thing. But if you don’t like the new features (features ALREADY implemented in gmail, Outlook and many other email apps) read on.

To remove the icons in the list view:

• Open Settings
• Tap Apps
• Tap Mail
• Turn off Show Contact Photos
• Optionally, turn off Summarize Message Previews

To turn off Categories:

• Open the Mail app
• Tap on an inbox
• Tap on ⋯⃝ in the upper right 
• Tap to check List View

These 2 steps will return the Mail app to the way it previously worked.

Apple just does not get it!! They keep changing things and complicating matters when people are quite used to them. they are not the expert in knowing what we want – get it AppleLeave the **** programs alone and let people rest. It’s time for everybody to rise up and start buying android devices now. Apple does not listen to you. They do whatever they want and they don’t give a **** how it affects people.

Not sure if this is relevant to your problems, but I think it fixed mine!

Thanks must go to Lammiwinks for this solution.

After upgrading to 8.2 and then to 8.2.1 and still seeing my email never come, I did a lot of searching for some sort of solution before totally wiping my ipad and restarting it. It turned out that it was a combination of the 8.2 upgrade along with my use of a PiHole ad blocking server. On the Pihole I had to whitelist two Apple domains.

The domains were mask.icloud.com and mask-h2.icloud.com.

Lammiwinks explains it better than I can in the following thread:

Mail cannot function in IOS 18.2 if iClou… - Apple Community

Hope this helps somebody else and maybe get Apple to fix this properly.

GChuckW

Why would Apple screw up something good. i just deleted the Mail app and went back to the Google Gmail app.

I’ve used iPad(s) for many years to access my email. My email uses a Zimbra Exchange Server, pushing my mail out to my iPad. I recently upgraded to IOS 18.2 and since then, email messages have been very slow to arrive. This is on an iPad Mini 6. I also still use my iPad Mini 3 running IOS 12.5.7 and the mail arrives on this old machine almost instantaneously, but nothing shows up on my Mini 6 for anywhere between 5 minutes to 2 hours later.

How do I roll back this Mini 6 to the previous version.

By the way, my wife has an iPad Air 6 running IOS 18.1.1 and getting her email from the same server and having absolutely no problems.

Please fix this or tell me how to roll back my version of IOS.

Thanks.

GChuckW

Csinkingfast wrote:

Mail is a nightmare after the 18.2.1 upgrade! Apple, fix this!

Apple doesn't read here in this user-to-user forum for feedback or suggestions. You can, however, let them know your thoughts here:

Product Feedback - Apple

Meanwhile, there are lots of other email apps out there. Perhaps one of them would better suit you.

To remove the icons in the list view:

• Open Settings
• Tap Apps
• Tap Mail
• Turn off Show Contact Photos
• Optionally, turn off Summarize Message Previews

To turn off Categories:

• Open the Mail app
• Tap on an inbox
• Tap on ⋯⃝ in the upper right 
• Tap to check List View

These 2 steps will return the Mail app to the way it previously worked.

However, Mail search has ALWAYS returned all matches, no matter how far back they go; this is nothing new.

iOS List view, minor improvement through Accessibility Setting. Adjust text size down. Now able to occasionally read Sender ID in list view without opening potentially hazardous spam, phishing etc., only works if sender has a short name. Still playing Russian Roulette everyday and wondering why Mail was brutally attacked by insiders, it’s still practically unusable for me. Apple please bring email previews back to my iPhone!!