11. Send And Receive Emails with the Mail App

If you’re someone who’s constantly on the go, being able to send and receive emails from virtually anywhere there’s a cellular or Wi-Fi Internet connection enables you to stay in touch, stay informed, and be productive from wherever you happen to be.

The Mail app offers a comprehensive set of tools to help you compose, send, receive, and organize emails from one or more of your existing email accounts. From your iPhone or iPad, you can simultaneously manage your personal and work-related email accounts, as well as the free email account that’s provided when you set up an iCloud account.

Before you can begin using the Mail app, it’s necessary to set up your existing email accounts from within Settings.

Adding Email Accounts to the Mail App

You use the Settings app to add accounts to work with the Mail app. The Mail app works with virtually all email accounts, including industry-standard POP3 and IMAP email services.

If you have an email account through your employer that doesn’t initially work using the setup procedure outlined in this chapter, contact your company’s IT department or Apple’s technical support for assistance.

Follow these steps to set up your iOS device to work with each of your existing email accounts:

1. Launch Settings.

2. Tap Account & Passwords.

3. From below the Accounts heading, tap Add Account.

4. Select the type of email account you have. Your options include iCloud, Microsoft Exchange, Google (Gmail), Yahoo!, AOL, Outlook.com, or Other (see Figure 11.1). Tap the appropriate option.

FIGURE 11.1

Choose the type of email account you’d like to add by tapping the appropriate option.

FIGURE 11.2

If you’re setting up a Yahoo! Mail account, tap the Yahoo! option, and then fill in your existing account information.

5. After you’ve entered information for your existing email account, your iOS mobile device connects to the email account’s server and confirms the account details.

6. After the account has been verified, you see a new window with options. They’re probably labeled Mail, Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, and Notes, although depending on the type of email account you’re setting up, some of these options might not be available. Be sure to turn on the virtual switch associated with the Mail option. Figure 11.3 shows how the menu looks when setting up a Yahoo! Mail account to work with an iPhone.

7. Tap the Accounts option. Below the Accounts heading within the Accounts & Passwords submenu, the newly added email account is listed.

8. Below the Accounts listing is the Fetch New Data option. Use this to determine how often your iOS device automatically accesses the Internet to check for and download new incoming email messages from each email account’s server.

FIGURE 11.3

For email accounts related to online services, such as Yahoo! or Google, you’ll be prompted to choose what additional content you want to sync and share with your iOS mobile device. Be sure to turn on the virtual switch associated with Mail.

9. If you have another existing email account to set up, return to step 3 and repeat this process. Otherwise, exit the Settings app and launch the Mail app.

After at least one email account account is set up, return to the main Settings menu and select the Mail option. From the Mail submenu, you’re able to customize a wide range of options pertaining to how the iOS mobile device you’re using accesses, displays, and organizes your emails. For example, by tapping on the Notifications option, you’re able to adjust how you’re alerted when new (incoming) emails are received to each of your email accounts.

Customizing Mail Options From Settings

To customize options available in the Mail app, launch Settings and select the Mail option. Displayed on the Mail submenu screen (see Figure 11.4) are a handful of customizable features for managing your email accounts.

FIGURE 11.4

From Settings, you can customize a handful of settings relating to the Mail app and how your incoming and outgoing emails (from all of your accounts linked with your iPhone or iPad) are handled.

At the top of the Mail submenu screen within Settings, tap Siri & Search and turn on the virtual switch associated with this feature to allow Siri and the Spotlight Search feature built into iOS 11 access Mail-related data from your email account(s).

Next, tap Notifications, turn on the Allow Notifications option displayed at the top of the submenu, and then tap each listed email account to customize Notifications-related options. These include how the selected mail account (and the Mail app) uses sounds, the Badge App Icon, and alerts to get your attention when new (incoming) emails arrive in your inbox.

When you scroll down the Mail submenu screen, the following customizable options relating to how the Mail app manages your email accounts and email messages are offered:

Preview—As you look at your Inbox (or any mailbox) using the Mail app, determine how much of each email message’s body text is visible from the mailbox summary screen, in addition to the From, Date/Time, and Subject. Choose None, or between one and five lines of the email message to preview.

Show To/Cc Label—Decide whether to view the To and Cc fields when viewing the preview screen for emails.

Swipe Options—This feature helps you manage the Inbox of your email accounts. As you’re looking at the previews of each message in your Inbox, swipe across each message listing to access menu options. Configure which Mail-related command(s) become available to you by swiping across a message listing (see Figure 11.5).

FIGURE 11.5

Access commonly used commands for managing incoming messages by swiping your finger across a message listing.

FIGURE 11.6

The Swipe Right submenu allows you to customize which Mail-related commands become available when you swipe from left to right across a message listing within your inbox.

Flag Style—When you flag an email as important, the Flag style determines whether the Mail app displays a flag-shaped icon or a colored dot next to each flagged email message.

Ask Before Deleting—This option serves as a safety net to ensure that you don’t accidentally delete an important email message from your iOS device. When this feature is turned on, you’re asked to confirm your message deletion request before an email message is actually deleted. By default, with some email service providers, you cannot delete email messages stored on your email account’s server. When you delete a message from the Mail app, it is deleted from your iPhone or iPad but is still accessible from other devices. Check with your mail service provider to see how this feature is set up and whether it is changeable.

Load Remote Images—When an email message has a photo or graphic embedded in it, this option determines whether the image is automatically downloaded and displayed with the email message. You can opt to refrain from automatically loading graphics with email messages to reduce the amount of data transferred to your iPhone or iPad (which is a consideration if you’re connected to the Internet via a cellular data network). You still have the option to tap the placeholder icon in the email message to manually download the images in a specific message.

Organize by Thread—This feature enables you to review messages in reverse chronological order if a single message turns into a back-and-forth email conversation in which multiple parties keep hitting Reply to respond to messages with the same subject. When turned on, this makes keeping track of email conversations (called threads) much easier, especially if you’re managing several email accounts on your iPhone or iPad. If it’s turned off, messages in your Inbox are displayed in reverse chronological order as they’re received, not grouped by subject or sender.

Collapse by Thread—As you read email messages as part of a long thread (back and forth email conversation), the Mail app automatically collapses read messages making it easier to scroll through a conversation. Simply tap any message to expand and reread it, as needed.

Always Bcc Myself—When this feature is turned on, a copy of every outgoing email is sent to your Inbox. Typically, all outgoing messages are automatically saved in a Sent folder related to that account. If your email account type does not enable you to access sent emails from another computer or device, using the Bcc Myself option compensates for this. When you send an email message from your iPhone or iPad, using this feature ensures that the message becomes accessible from your primary computer.

Mark Addresses—With this option, you can enter a portion of an email address and then be alerted each time an email is received that meets that search criteria. For example, if you do business with many people who work at The Widget Company and their email addresses end with @widget.com, anyone with an email address ending with @widget.com, such as [email protected], [email protected], or [email protected], can be automatically flagged in your Inbox to get your attention. All you have to do is store “widget.com” in the Mark Address field. This feature is particularly useful if you work in a corporate environment.

Increase Quote Level—When turned on, anytime you reply to a message or forward a message, the content of that original email appears indented, making it easier to differentiate between the message you add and the original message being replied to or forwarded. This option affects the message formatting, not the actual content.

Signature—For every outgoing email that you compose, you can automatically add an email signature. The default signature is “Sent from my iPhone” or “Sent from my iPad.” However, with this option you can create customized signatures for each email account. A signature might include your name, mailing address, email address, phone numbers, and so forth.

Default Account—If you’re using the Mail app to manage multiple email accounts, when you reply to a message or forward a message, it is always sent from the email account to which the message was originally sent. However, if you tap the Compose New Email icon to create a new email from scratch, the email account from which the message is sent is whichever you have set up as the Mail app’s default account. If you want to change this account for a specific email, simply tap the From field as you’re composing a new email and select one of your other accounts.

Viewing Your Incoming Mail

When you launch the Mail app, the Inbox for your various email accounts is displayed. You can opt to display incoming messages for a single email account, or display the incoming messages from all of your email accounts by selecting the All Inboxes option.

Even though Mail enables you to simultaneously view incoming emails from multiple accounts within a single listing (on the same screen), behind the scenes, the app automatically keeps your incoming and outgoing emails and your various email accounts separate. So if you opt to read and respond to an email from your work-related Inbox, for example, that response is automatically sent out from your work-related email account and saved in the Sent folder for that account.

Viewing all the Inboxes for all of your accounts simultaneously makes it faster to review your incoming emails, without having to manually switch between email accounts.

If you have multiple email accounts being managed from your iOS device, to view all of your Inboxes simultaneously, or to switch between Inboxes, follow these steps:

1. Launch the Mail app.

2. The Inbox you last looked at is probably displayed. If only one email account is set up to work with your iPhone or iPad, the last email you viewed is displayed.

3. Tap Mailboxes in the upper-left corner of the screen to see a list of your inboxes so you can select which Inbox you want to view. If you’re looking at a particular account’s Inbox, the arrow-shaped option is labeled with the name of the mailbox.

4. From the menu that appears, the first option displayed is All Inboxes. Tap it to view a single listing of all incoming emails, or tap any single email account that’s listed on the Mailboxes screen.

FIGURE 11.7

Tap the Unsubscribe option above the email’s header if you want to immediately request to be removed from the mass email list.

As you’re viewing a listing of messages within All Inboxes, a specific inbox, or any mailbox, type a keyword, date, name, email address, or search phrase in the Search field to quickly find a particular message or message thread that contains the search word or phrase you entered.

Composing an Email Message

From the Mail app, it’s easy to compose an email from scratch and send it to one or more recipients. Just tap the Compose icon. On an iPhone, the Compose icon is in the lower-right corner of the screen in the Mail app. On an iPad, the Compose icon is in the top-right corner of the screen.

When you tap the Compose icon, a blank New Message email message template appears. Using the virtual keyboard, fill in the To, Cc, Bcc, and Subject fields (see Figure 11.8). You must fill in the To field with a valid email address for at least one recipient. The other fields are optional.

You can send the same email to multiple recipients by either adding multiple email addresses to the To field or adding email addresses to the Cc or Bcc fields.

The From field is automatically filled in with your email address. If you’re managing multiple email addresses from the iPhone or iPad, the default address (which you select from the Mail submenu within Settings) is used. If you want to change the address from which the email is being sent, tap the From field to select one of your other accounts. See the “Customizing Mail Options from Settings” section earlier in this chapter for information on changing the default account.

FIGURE 11.8

Tap the Compose icon to create an email from scratch and send it from your iOS device.

Next, tap the Subject field and use the virtual keyboard to enter the subject for your message. As you do this, the subject appears at the very top center of the Compose window (replacing the New Message heading).

To begin creating the main body of the outgoing email message, tap in the main body area of the Compose Message screen, and begin using the virtual keyboard (or an optional external keyboard) to compose your message. You also have the option of tapping the Dictation key and then dictating your message using the Dictation feature.

FIGURE 11.9

The QuickType feature works nicely when composing emails using the Mail app. Notice the suggested text displayed in tabs just above the virtual keyboard.

FIGURE 11.10

To access the “alternate” letter, number, or symbol that’s displayed on an iPad’s virtual keyboard key, press and hold the key. When the alternate letter, number, or symbol is displayed prominently, tap it.

The signature you set up from within Settings for the selected From account is automatically displayed at the bottom of each newly composed message. You can return to Settings to turn off the Signature feature or change the signature that appears. A signature can also be edited or added manually, directly from the Compose screen, as you create or edit each message.

When your email is fully written and ready to be sent, tap the Send option. In a few seconds, the message is sent from your iOS device, assuming that it is connected to the Internet. A copy of the message appears in your Sent or Outbox folder. As a message is being sent, a “Sending” notification appears near the bottom of the Mail app’s screen.

On an iPhone, you format text within an email message you’re composing by typing the text as you normally would using the virtual keyboard. After the text appears in your email, hold your finger on a word to make the Select, Select All, Paste, Quote Level, Insert Photo or Video, and Add Attachment command tabs appear above that word.

Tap Select, and then use your finger to move the blue dots to highlight the text you want to modify. When the appropriate text is highlighted in blue, tap the right-pointing arrow above the text (next to the Cut, Copy, and Paste commands), and then tap the BIU option. A new menu appears above the highlighted text with three options labeled Bold, Italic, and Underline (shown in Figure 11.11). Tap one or more of these tabs to alter the highlighted text.

FIGURE 11.11

On an iPhone, you can format text after it’s been typed in the Mail app. You can add bold, italic, or underline.

On an iPad, in the top-right corner of the virtual keyboard is a text formatting (BIU) icon, as well as an Attach Photo and a File Attachment icon (refer to Figure 11.12). By tapping this formatting icon and selecting a typestyle, you can format text in real time as you’re typing. If you want to type using bold/italic text, for example, tap the B and I icons. Alternatively, you can use the Select command after text is typed, and adjust the typestyle using the directions outlined earlier for the iPhone.

FIGURE 11.12

Format text as you’re composing an email on an iPad (using the virtual keyboard) by tapping on the BIU option.

Inserting a Photo or Video into Outgoing Mail

As you’re composing an outgoing email on an iPhone, one way you can insert a photo or video clip that’s stored in the Photos app into that email is to place and hold your finger anywhere in the body of the email where you want to embed the content.

When the Insert Photo or Video tab is displayed, tap it. Select the photo you want to insert into the email by selecting an album and then tapping an image or video thumbnail. The photo/video you selected is previewed in the Choose Photo window. Tap the Use button to insert the photo or video into your email.

Repeat this process to include multiple images within an email, keeping in mind that the overall file size associated with the outgoing email is often limited by your email service.

Inserting an Email Attachment

To add a file attachment into an email you’re composing, place and hold down your finger in the body of the email where you want to insert the file. From the menu that appears tap the Add Attachment option. Alternatively, if you’re using an iPad, simply tap the File Attachment icon at the extreme right on the toolbar above the virtual keyboard.

When you opt to attach a file to an outgoing email, your iOS mobile device accesses online accounts linked with the Files app, and enables you to select one or more files stored within one of your compatible cloud-based accounts, such as iCloud Drive or Dropbox. (Most files stored locally within your iPhone or iPad, with the exception of photos, are not accessible for sharing from the Mail app.)

Select the file of files you want to attach to the outgoing email by tapping its icon or listing and then tap Done. The selected files are attached to the outgoing email message.

Using Select, Select All, Cut, Copy, and Paste

The iOS operating system offers Select, Select All, Cut, Copy, and Paste commands, which are accessible from many iPhone or iPad apps, including Mail. Using these commands, you can quickly copy and paste content from one portion of an app to another or from one app into another app, whether it’s a paragraph of text, a phone number, or a photo.

To use these commands, use your finger to hold down on any word or graphic element on the screen for one or two seconds, until the Select and Select All tabs appear above that content. To select a single word or select the content you want to copy or cut, tap the Select tab. Alternatively, to select all the content on the screen, tap the Select All tab.

After text (or a graphic element, such as a photo) is selected, tap the Cut tab to delete the selected content from the screen (if this option is available in the app you’re using), or tap the Copy tab to save the highlighted content in your iPhone or iPad’s virtual clipboard.

Now, move to where you want to paste the saved content. This can be in the same email or document, for example, or in another app altogether. Choose the location on the screen where you want to paste the content, and hold your finger on that location for two or three seconds. When the Paste tab appears, tap it. The content you just copied to the virtual clipboard is pasted into that location.

Saving an Unsent Draft of an Email

To save a draft of an email without sending it, as you’re composing the email message, tap the Cancel button in the upper-left corner of the Compose message window. Two command buttons appear: Delete Draft and Save Draft. To save the unsent draft, tap Save Draft.

You can return to it later to modify and send it. To do this, from the main Inbox screen in Mail, tap the left-pointing Mailboxes at the upper-left corner of the screen. From the Mailboxes screen, scroll down to the Accounts heading, and tap the listing for the email account from which the email draft was composed.

When you see a list of folders related to that email account, tap the Drafts folder. Tap the appropriate listing to open the email message. You can now edit the message or send it.

Reading Email

Just like the Inbox on your main computer’s email software, the Inbox of the Mail app (shown in Figure 11.13 on an iPhone) displays your incoming emails.

FIGURE 11.13

The Inbox screen of the Mail app displays a list of your incoming emails on the iPhone.

On an iPhone, the Inbox screen takes up the entire screen. On an iPad, the Inbox list is displayed on the left side of the screen, while a selected email message is displayed on the right side of the screen (see Figure 11.14).

FIGURE 11.14

The Inbox screen of the Mail app on an iPad is displayed on the left, while the entire selected email message (highlighted in gray in the Inbox list) is displayed on the right.

When you’re viewing your Inbox(es), a list of the individual emails is displayed. Based on the customizations you make from the Settings app from the Mail submenu, the Sender, Subject, Date/Time, and up to five lines of the message’s body text can be displayed for each incoming message listing.

On the iPhone, when viewing your Inbox and the listing of incoming (new) email messages, tap any message listing to read that message in its entirety. When you do this, a new message screen appears. At the bottom of this screen is a series of command icons for managing that email.

On the iPad, the email message that’s highlighted in gray on the left side of the screen is the one that’s currently being displayed, in its entirety, on the right side of the screen. Tap any email on the left side of the screen to view the entire message on the right side of the screen.

Located at the top of the Inbox message listing is a Search field. You might need to swipe your finger downward along the Inbox to reveal it. Tap the Search field to make the virtual keyboard appear so you can enter a search phrase and quickly find a particular email message. You can search the content of the Mail app using any keyword, a sender’s name, a date, or an email subject, for example. You can also use your device’s Spotlight Search feature to quickly locate content within email messages.

Managing the Inbox with the Edit Button

Located on top of a mailbox’s message listing (to the right of its heading) is the Edit button. Tap this option to quickly select multiple messages from a mailbox, such as your Inbox, and delete or move the selected content to another mailbox (or folder), as shown in Figure 11.15.

FIGURE 11.15

Tap the Edit button, and then manage your incoming messages, mark them, delete them in quantity, or move them to the Trash folder.

After you tap the Edit button, an empty circle icon appears to the left of each email message preview listing. To move or delete one or more messages from the current mailbox’s listing (which could be your Inbox, VIP, Archive, or Junk mailbox), tap the empty circle icon for that message. A blue-and-white check mark fills the empty circle when you do this, and the Mark, Move, and Trash options are displayed at the bottom of the screen.

After you’ve selected one or more messages, tap the Trash button to delete one or more messages simultaneously from the mailbox (they go to the Trash folder), or tap the Move button and then select to which folder you want to move those email messages. Tap the Mark option to Flag the message, mark it as unread, or move it to the Junk folder.

To exit this option without doing anything, tap the Cancel button displayed at the top of the Inbox listing.

Deleting Individual Incoming Messages

As you’re looking at the listing of messages in your Inbox (or any mailbox), you can delete individual messages, one at a time, by swiping your finger from right to left over a message listing. Tap the red-and-white Trash option to delete the message.

Tap the More (…) option to access a menu (shown in Figure 11.16) to access a more detailed menu that includes options for Reply, Reply All, Forward, Mark, Show Related Messages, Notify Me, and Move Message options (see Figure 11.17).

FIGURE 11.16

After swiping from right to left across a message listing in your Inbox, tap More to reveal this menu.

FIGURE 11.17

The More menu provides another way to access commonly used features for managing your email messages.

Viewing Your Emails

When a single email message is selected from the Inbox listing, that message is displayed in its entirety. At the top of the message, see the From, To, Cc/Bcc (if applicable), Subject, and the Date/Time it was sent.

In the upper-right corner of the email message is a blue Hide command. If you tap this, some of the message header information will no longer be displayed. To make this information reappear, tap the More (…) option.

As you’re reading an email, tap the flag icon to flag that message and mark it as urgent, or mark the email as unread. These options appear within a pop-up menu. When you flag a message, an orange flag (or an orange dot) is displayed in the message itself (to the right of the date and time) and in the Inbox (mailbox) in which the message is stored. Plus, from your Inboxes menu, if you tap the Flagged option, you can view a separate mailbox that contains only flagged (urgent) messages.

Using the Mail App’s Vip List Feature

In addition to flagging individual messages as important, the Mail app can automatically highlight all emails sent from particular (important) senders, such as your boss, specific clients, close friends, or family members. Once you add a sender to your VIP List, all their incoming emails are marked with a star icon instead of a blue dot that represents a regular, new incoming email.

To add someone to your VIP list, as you’re reading an email from that person, tap the From field (the name/email address). A Sender screen (iPhone) or window (iPad) appears. Tap the Add to VIP option. This adds and keeps that sender on your custom VIP list until you manually remove them. To later remove someone from your VIP list, read any of their email messages and tap the From field. When the Sender window appears, tap the Remove from VIP option (which has replaced the Add to VIP option).

Dealing with Incoming Attachments

The Mail app enables you to access certain types of attachment files that accompany an incoming email message. Dozens of file formats are compatible with the Mail app. As you add third-party apps that support other file formats, they become recognized by the Mail app. This includes files related to text, photos, audio clips, video clips, PDFs, and eBooks, as well as iWork and Microsoft Office documents and files.

To open an attached file using another app, in the incoming email message, tap and hold down the attachment icon for a second. When you release your finger, you see a pop-up menu of command icons. These icons represent options for sharing, managing, printing, annotating, copying, or transferring the file to a cloud-based account your iPhone or iPad is linked with.

For example, if you receive a PDF, you can open, view, and annotate it using the Preview feature, or you can import the file into a compatible app that allows you to view or fully manage and work with PDFs, such as iBooks or the PDF Expert app (which is available from the App Store).

Organizing Email Messages in Folders

You can easily move email messages into a folder, enabling you to better organize your emails. Here’s how to do this:

1. From the Inbox listing, tap Edit above the Inbox listing. Or, if you’re viewing an email message, swipe your finger from right to left across the message listing.

2. Tap Move. A menu that offers various folders and options available for that email account is displayed.

3. Tap Move Message, and then tap the mailbox folder to which you want to move the message. The email message is moved to the folder you select.

Forwarding, Printing, and Replying to Messages

As you’re reading incoming emails, you can forward a message to someone else, reply to the message, or print the email by tapping the left-pointing, curved-arrow icon displayed when you’re viewing an email. When you tap this icon, as you’re reading any email message a menu offers the following options: Reply, Forward, and Print. If the message you’re viewing has more than one recipient, an additional option, Reply All, appears.

To reply to the message you’re reading, tap the Reply (or Reply All) option. An email message template appears on the screen that already contains the content of the message you’re replying to. Refer to the “Composing an Email Message” section for details on how to write and send an email message from the Mail app.

To forward the email (or message thread) you’re reading to another recipient, tap the Forward icon. If an attachment is associated with the email, you’re asked, “Include attachments from original email?” and offered two options: Include and Don’t Include. Tap the appropriate response.

When you opt to forward an email, a new message template appears on the screen. However, the content of the message you’re forwarding appears in the body of the email message. Start the message-forwarding process by filling in the To field. You can also modify the Subject field (or leave the message’s original subject), and then add to the body of the email message with your own text. This text appears above the forwarded message’s content.

When you’re ready to forward the message, tap Send, or tap Cancel to abort the message-forwarding process.

If you have an AirPrint-compatible printer set up to work with your iOS device, tap the Print option that appears when you tap the left-pointing curved-arrow icon as you’re reading an email.