iOS 8 Tip: How to use 3 of the best new features in the Mail App. With iOS 8, Apple introduced several new features to all of their standard apps that come with every iOS device. The Mail App received some fantastic upgrades. Here are 3 of the best upgrades and how to use each.
1. Pull to Hide
This is by far one of my favorite new features in the Mail App in iOS 8. It allows me to look up other information or read other emails while saving a current email that I am composing. To activate this, simply tap and drag down on the very top of the email that you are writing (right between the “Cancel” and “Send” buttons). When you drag an email down like this, it saves it at the bottom of the screen and allows you to access other emails. You can copy text from another email or just simply read other emails and then return to this message to finish it at a later time. What’s more, you can save multiple emails in progress to access later. Simply start a second or third new email and then drag it down to save it for later. At any time when you have multiple emails saved like this, simply tap on the title of the email at the bottom of the screen and all the saved emails will fan up in the same way that open tabs fan up in the Safari Browser. This is one of the best new features in the email app on iOS 8!
2. Email Specific Notifications
This is also a great new feature in iOS 8. Specific email notifications allows you to get a notification on your lock screen for each time you receive a message in response to the marked email. For example, let’s say you are organizing a family gathering. You send out an email to your family with menu items for the food at the gathering. You want to make sure that you are aware of all the emails the come back in response to your email. So, as you are composing the original email, or at any point after that, simply tap the bell symbol and you will be given the option to be notified of any new emails in that particular email thread. The bell symbol appears at the far right when you are typing in the subject line and it can also be accessed by swiping left on any email in the inbox and tapping on the “More” button and then “Notify Me…”. That’s it, now any time someone responds to that specific email, you will receive a notification on your lock screen.
3. More Swipes
iOS 8 also brings additional options when swiping right or left on any email in your Inbox. Swiping right will give the option to “Mark as Read/Unread” and swiping left will give the option to “Flag”, “Archive/Delete”, and “More”. In addition, if you swipe left and then continue swiping left, your message will automatically be “Archived/Deleted” (depending on your email settings). This makes working with emails much easier by giving quick access to some of the most commonly used functions. It reminds me of some of the features available in the Mailbox App.
Overall, iOS 8 brings fantastic new features to the Mail App. These are definitely 3 of the best! Have you found more features in the Mail App that you like? Feel free to enter them in the comments section for the benefit of the community.
