How to Turn Off Mail Categories on Mac (and Keep Them)

Apple Mail started sorting messages into tabs on the Mac with macOS Sequoia, released in September 2024. The same feature — Categories, with its Primary, Transactions, Updates, and Promotions tabs — had shipped on iPhone a few months earlier with iOS 18, which is why most guides ranking for this topic still show iPhone screenshots and iPhone menu paths. Those steps do not work on a Mac.

This guide covers how to turn off Mail Categories on a Mac specifically. Every step names the macOS version it applies to. Whether you want to disable Categories permanently, understand what the setting actually changes about your unread count and notifications, or figure out why the tabs came back after an update, everything is here. The platform differences table later in the post shows how the Mac toggle path compares to iPhone and iPad, because the setting lives in a different place on each device.

One thing worth saying before the steps: turning off Categorize Messages does not delete or move any mail. Every message stays in the same mailbox folder it was already in. All that changes is how the inbox renders — four tabs versus one flat list.

Before you start#

Mail Categories require macOS Sequoia 15.0 or later. The Categorize Messages checkbox does not appear in Mail Settings on macOS Ventura (13.x) or macOS Sonoma (14.x). If you open Mail Settings and cannot find the option, check your macOS version: click the Apple menu in the top-left corner of the screen and choose About This Mac. If the version shown is below 15.0, the feature is not available on your current system — nor is the setting to turn it off.

The feature is also limited by account type. As of macOS Sequoia, Categorize Messages works with Gmail and iCloud Mail accounts. Messages from Outlook, Exchange, Yahoo, and other IMAP-only accounts arrive in a flat list regardless of how the setting is configured. If you have a mixed mailbox — for example, a Gmail account and a corporate Exchange account — you may see tabs for Gmail while Exchange stays as a single list. That is expected behavior, not a bug.

The four tabs Categories uses to sort your mail:

• Primary — personal messages and anything not automatically sorted into one of the other three tabs
• Transactions — receipts, order confirmations, booking records, bank statements, and financial alerts
• Updates — newsletters, subscription digests, app notifications, social media alerts, and announcements
• Promotions — marketing emails, discount offers, sale campaigns, and promotional messages

How to turn off Mail Categories on Mac#

There are two paths: Mail Settings for a persistent toggle, and the View menu for a quicker switch if Mail is already open. Both reach the same result.

1. 1

   Open Mail Settings

   Open Mail from your Dock or Applications folder. In the menu bar at the top of the screen, click Mail and then choose Settings. The keyboard shortcut is Command-Comma. On macOS Ventura and Sonoma the same menu item was called Preferences, but again, Categories are not available on those versions.

2. 2

   Click the General tab

   The Settings window opens with several tabs across the top — General, Accounts, Junk Mail, Fonts and Colors, Viewing, Composing, and others depending on your version. Click General. It is the first tab on the left and is usually selected by default when Settings opens.

3. 3

   Uncheck Categorize Messages

   Find the checkbox labelled Categorize Messages in the General tab and uncheck it. The inbox switches to a flat list view the moment you uncheck the box. No dialog appears and no restart is required — the change is immediate.

4. 4

   Close Settings

   Close the Settings window. Your inbox now shows all messages in a single chronological stream with one combined unread count. To re-enable Categories at any point, open Mail Settings, return to General, and check Categorize Messages again.

If you prefer not to go into Settings, the View menu in Mail's menu bar offers a faster path. When Categories are enabled, View contains a Show as List option. Clicking it disables Categories and switches to the flat list view immediately. To reverse the change, click View again and choose Show as Categorized.

The View menu and the Settings checkbox stay in sync — they represent the same underlying toggle. Whichever you use last determines what you see the next time you open Settings. The shortcut is worth knowing if you want to compare views quickly before committing to one.

Categories view versus list view: what actually changes#

The toggle is simple to flip, but the downstream effects on unread counts and notification behavior are worth understanding before you change it — especially if you rely on your inbox badge to manage response priorities.

The unread count behavior is the thing most likely to surprise you. With Categories on, your Mail app badge reflects unread messages in certain tabs by default — a backlog of unread Promotions or Updates emails sits quietly without inflating the number you see on the Mail icon in the Dock. Switch to list view and every unread message merges into one combined count. The badge can jump noticeably the first time you make this change, not because new mail arrived, but because previously separated unread counts are now visible as a single total.

If that number jumps and you want to clear it quickly, select all messages in your inbox with Command-A and mark them as read. This resets the badge count without deleting or archiving anything.

Mac, iPhone, and iPad: where the setting lives on each device#

The same four category tabs exist across Mac, iPhone, and iPad, but the toggle is in a different location on each. The Mac and iOS settings do not sync — turning Categories off on your Mac has no effect on your iPhone or iPad. If you want a flat list on every device, you need to change the setting on each one separately.

What to do when it doesn't work#

If the Categorize Messages checkbox is missing from Mail Settings, the cause is almost always macOS version. The option only exists on macOS Sequoia 15.0 or later. Go to the Apple menu and choose About This Mac to confirm your version number. If it is below 15.0, the feature is not available on your current system and the toggle does not exist. An update to macOS Sequoia is required to access Categories or to turn them off.

If Categories were turned off and came back after a macOS update, open Mail Settings > General and uncheck the box again. System updates — particularly major version updates, but occasionally minor ones too — can reset Mail preferences including this setting. After any macOS update it is worth opening Mail Settings to confirm Categorize Messages is still in the state you left it.

If only some of your accounts show category tabs, that is expected. Categorize Messages applies only to Gmail and iCloud accounts. Outlook, Exchange, Yahoo, and other IMAP accounts always display a flat list regardless of the setting. In a mailbox with multiple account types, tabs appear only for the supported accounts, and toggling the setting does not change the behavior of the unsupported ones.

A faster way to triage your inbox#

Apple Mail Categories sort messages by type — receipts in one place, newsletters in another, promotions tucked away. That handles a genuine frustration with noisy inboxes. Where it reaches its limit is in distinguishing what needs a response from what can wait: a Primary tab can fill with personal notes, time-sensitive client messages, and low-priority updates all in the same stream, and Categories alone does not help you work through them in the right order.

AI Emaily is an AI-native email client that works across Gmail, Outlook, and IMAP accounts. Instead of sorting by message type, it surfaces what requires action — threads awaiting a reply, follow-ups you committed to, messages worth flagging before they fall through. The triage runs from a user-set context profile, not from training on your mail. Every automated action in Copilot mode waits for your approval before anything sends, and Autopilot actions are logged and reversible. You can start with a [7-day free trial](/pricing) to see how it fits your workflow. [We build AI Emaily](/).