You look at your inbox on your iPhone and iPad and find it empty. You know you’ve had messages! They are not in your trash or junk folders. Where did they go? Focus on the lower-left corner of the Mail app view, and you’ll see a blue circle with three lines, from largest to smallest, from top to bottom. This is the Filter button, and you hit it without realizing it.
Tap again, the blue turns to white and your email returns.
Apple added the filter feature years ago, but I keep hearing from readers and family members who stumble upon it. If you don’t choose to use it, you don’t know it’s there; if you accidentally touch it, you don’t have a reference point to know that’s what happened.
It’s a modestly flexible tool that’s meant to be used if you have a crowded inbox. However, it may be more valuable to use with archived files.
When you tap the icon, it changes from an open circle with blue lines to a blue circle with white lines. Then you can tap a menu to the right of it that reveals the criteria. You can’t edit these criteria to add your own filters—you have to use Smart Folders on a Mac for that. But the filter options can be useful: you can show only the messages you are in the main To: address field, only those from people you’ve added to your VIP list or messages you’ve bookmarked. Some options can be combined, while others are exclusive.
Starting in iOS 16, you can pair filtering with a Focus mode. IN SETTINGS > FOCUSINGselect a Focus mode, then tap Add filter at the bottom under Focus Filters. touch COMMUNICATIONS, then select which accounts you want messages from to appear in Mail while Focus mode is active. touch Add when you are done. You can delete this filter by tapping on it and tapping Delete the filter.
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