How to use Apple’s Mail categorization AI in macOS 15.4

If you are among the rapidly-growing number of Mac users in the enterprise, you should know that Apple’s newly-released macOS Sequoia 15.4 is festooned with security updates, brings support for Apple Intelligence across most major languages (including to Europe), and introduces new AI tools for the app you most likely use every day, Mail. 

Those new tools — already available on iPhones in iOS — mean your Mac will try to highlight what it believes are the most important messages you receive, which could help you stay on top of your flow. There are some limitations — the biggest of which is that you can’t create your own Mail message categories. 

What are categories?

We looked at Apple’s AI-boosted email categorization system for iPhones when it was first made available. It tries to sort your incoming communications within the following categories:

All Mail:  All your Mail as it is received.

Primary: All the messages Apple Intelligence thinks might be important to you.

Transactions: Invoices, shopping receipts, banking messages.

Updates: Subscriptions and stuff that you probably ignore.

Promotions: All the mail you also probably ignore.

Note: Mail puts time-sensitive emails in your Primary account.

How to navigate categories

Click on the currently selected category and you can access the All Mail category, or tap on that to select another.

How to turn categorization off

To disable categorization on your Mac, tap the three-dot icon just above your in-box. You will then be able to choose to show your email by category, return to the familiar Mail in-box view in chronological order or find out more about what categorization is doing on your Mac.

How to improve categorization

The system isn’t perfect. To change the category, command click on the email in the inbox to invoke a contextual menu within which you can select the Categorize Sender item. Use this to assign all emails from that sender to a more appropriate category.

Can you create your own categories?

As noted, you can’t yet create your own custom categories; the best you can do is create Smart Mailboxes for specific contacts or topics. Perhaps this will change one day, but it hasn’t changed yet.

Now available internationally

The new tools aren’t just for English emails. Apple Intelligence is also now available in 10 new languages and English language variants. Importantly, these include many of the world’s most widely used languages, including Chinese, Spanish, French and Portuguese, with localized English for India and Singapore, German, Japanese, and Korean.

What else is new?

Mail now also offers a Digest View in which you can look at all the messages you have received from a sender withing a single thread. If you choose to use it, you can also see relevant Contact photos in the inbox, just as you already do in Apple’s Messages app.

Additional improvements, tweaks, and features in macOS 15.4 exist, but for me, the best enhancement is one you have to pay for: Apple News+ subscribers gain an Apple News Food section aggregating recipes, articles about food, and other information you can use to get more creative in your kitchen. (It’s hard to avoid seeing this as an app designed for the tabletop iPad Apple is meant to be developing.) Other casual tweaks include a new Sketch style in Image Playground, Memory Movie support for custom slideshows in Photos, and new emojis. 

Significant security updates

This particular macOS update comes with well in excess of 50 security updates addressing vulnerabilities across the system, from WebKit to Safari and beyond. Many of these vulnerabilities concern attacks designed to access sensitive user data or attacks designed to execute arbitrary code (to mess up your Mac or steal your digital stash). The number of security patches in this release alone should be good reason to install the new update.

Growing pains

If you use driver extensions for some reason, such as for third-party accessories, you might experience issues when you upgrade. If you do, try this approach: Open System Settings>General>Login Items & Extensions and disable your affected driver extensions. Restart your Mac. After restarting, return to that section to re-enable the drivers.

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