How to Disable Mail Sender Icons on iPhone in iOS 18.2
Apple recently introduced a completely new redesign for Mail app on iPhone including a Mail Categories feature that many users have strong opinions about, and along with that design change are new large prominent sender profile icons, which sit next to every item in the inbox. These large prominent mail sender icons squeeze the Mail interface on iPhone making it more difficult to read who an email is from, along with obscuring much of the mail subject, and hiding most much of a mail message preview, making the Mail app on iPhone more difficult to read, scan, and use for many iPhone users. Mail sender icons will show the contact photo of a sender if that’s available, but since that’s usually not the case with most emails, you end up with large random thumbnail icons that just obscure the Mail interface.
Fortunately, much like you can disable the annoying Mail Categories feature that was introduced to iPhone, you can also disable the obnoxious large prominent Mail sender icons and contact photos as well, making your Mail inbox easier to read again, restoring Mail to the classic appearance that had been mostly the same since the beginning of iPhone.
How to Disable Contact Photos / Sender Icons in Mail for iPhone
- Open the “Settings” app on iPhone
- Go to “Apps” and then choose “Mail”
- Locate the setting for “Show Contact Photos” and toggle that to the OFF position
- Return to Mail app on iPhone to find the Mail interface back to normal again
This will restore the appearance of Mail app to be closer to the original iPhone Mail app interface.
Here’s what the Mail app should look like now, even in iOS 18.2 with the maligned Mail app redesign:
Contrast that to the new iOS 18.2 Mail redesigned interface default, which shows large contact photos instead of useful email preview information:
You’ll note in these screenshots that the new Mail redesign Mail Categorization feature is also disabled.
If you haven’t done so yet, and you hate the new Mail app redesign as many users do, you’ll probably want to disable the Mail Categories feature on iPhone as well. Since inconsistency with settings is unfortunately becoming consistent with these sort of things, you’ll find the settings toggle for that particular feature within the Mail app itself, not in the Settings app.
The Mail Contact Photos being stuffed alongside mail senders kind of makes the Mail app look like some social media messenger app, and while that may make sense if you’re interacting with a lot of people you know well enough to want to see their faces or sender icons, that’s rarely the case with many people’s emails. Additionally, very few people use the Mail app as a social media messenger, so to mimic that appearance while squeezing the entire Mail interface and reducing legibility and preview of email messages is an interesting design decision on Apple’s behalf. The Mail sender contact photo icons are particularly obnoxious if you use text size for Mail that is larger than anything microscopic, since the giant icons squeeze down any available space for senders name, subject, and the message preview.
What do you think of the Mail app redesign and showing the mail sender contact photo icons with every email? Do you like the feature or hate it? Share your thoughts and opinions in the comments.
Oh Thank Gawd!!! I thought that behavior was baked into Sequoia… I didn’t scroll down far enough to see the option to turn off those Big Fat Sender Icons!!!! THANK YOU!!!
It’s as if Apple developers think their core audience are all 7 years old. This is completely useless and pointless. It’s hard to believe no adults intervened here.
It’s like when any links used in emails were automagically converted to link previews and there was no way to turn it off. Mind-boggling.
Apple needs people on the development team that didn’t grow up using TikTok and have the attention span of gnats or tweens.
Icons on tiny screens is not an improvement. Complete waste of valuable space. All the good developers must have left Apple.
Nice ! I found how to select “list view” on my own but getting rid of these icons is a real plus – Thanks !
That icon is at the top of the message , left of their
name ?
I do not like the new feature of the sender icons included in the mail app . I feel that it should be optional , as should many features of our apps & devices .
Every time Apple believes that they are doing me a
favor , it adds to my resentment towards them . I find it disrespectful that they are privy to our app preferences .
Apple interferes with our Contacts , Photos , Pages ,
iCloud and Safari just created a profile by default ~ it’s like having two Safaris & I can’t remove it .
We pay a lot of money for their products & services ,
we deserve the opportunity to make them suitable for our needs .
Additionally , the support screens are becoming increasingly useless ~ gives the same three results no matter how I arrange the keywords . The chat experience turns out to be me having more knowledge of my question & answer than the employee .
Thanks for the opportunity to share.
🗽
which member of the AAPL braintrust decided gigantic user icons on tiny screens was a good idea? i’m having less and less confidence in Cook’s ability to lead Apple. i know it’s a cliché to say “Steve Jobs would NEVER…” but…
Another example of an useless app updates to justify a coders job. Meanwhile, Apple broke their Books app 5 years ago and have yet to fix it. Never buying a book/audiobook/music from them again.
This article is the best Christmas present I can imagine, for me. I have wanted to smash my iPhone since Apple created this absurd distraction and space-waster. Thank you!!