You may disable a new feature in iOS 18 that is designed to help you manage your emails if it isn’t a good match.

Although I value Apple’s engineers’ efforts to simplify the iPhone, a recent update to iOS 18.4 caught me off guard. The new Mail categories are enabled by default and are designed to assist prioritize communications by sorting incoming emails. After giving it a fair go, I decided to disable the function since I found this method to be too abrupt.

However, that did remind me that there are several iPhone options that many people would never discover. Many of my favorites are compiled below. It’s worthwhile to go over these features again to enhance your regular iPhone experience, even if you only glanced at them when iOS 18 was first released.

Don’t forget that iOS 18 includes the first Apple Intelligence features, so be sure to check out the ones you’ll use most. You may also discover how to disable Apple Intelligence if you don’t want to use the AI capabilities right now or want to wait.

Read about updates to the Mail app and the redesigned Calculator app for more information on what’s new in iOS 18. Additionally, before updating, make sure you have a suitable backup by consulting our iOS 18 upgrade checklist.

Everybody handles the deluge of communications in a different way when it comes to something like email. The Mail app has always maintained a chronological list, but if you also receive a ton of receipts, promotions, and other emails, that might become cumbersome. The new categories feature estimates how your messages should be arranged and generates virtual buckets for Primary, Transactions, Updates, and Promotions.

Here are two things to attempt if that method doesn’t work for you.

• In the event that categories are somewhat useful, but you still want a chronological view of your Inbox, slide all the way to the right of the categories and hit All Mail.

• To completely disable categories, select List View after tapping the three-dot menu (…) in the upper-right corner.

Change the default buttons on the lock screen

The bottom corners of the iPhone lock screen are the best locations for real estate, and while your device is locked, you can easily access them with a thumb push. Prior to iOS 18, the flashlight and camera buttons controlled those posts, and there was no way to modify them.

In iOS 18, you can now swap them out for other buttons or take them off completely, which is a relief for people who accidentally turn on the flashlight (trust me, there’s a better way to turn it on). You may add buttons to unlock your wallet, send money via Tap to Cash, set an alarm or timer, activate Airplane Mode, enable Dark Mode, and Shazam music recognition, among other features.

Here’s how:

1. Touch and hold anywhere on the iPhone’s lock screen until the Customize button appears. You must use your passcode, Face ID, or Touch ID to open the phone. Swipe down from the center-top of the screen (not the right edge, which displays Control Center) if it opens the home screen.

2. After selecting Customize, select Lock Screen.

3. Tap the icon’s – (minus) button to remove one of the buttons.

4. Tap the button’s space (now with a plus icon) to swap it out for another function, and then select the desired one from the resulting screen. (You may alternatively choose not to have a button in that area.)

5. If you wish to modify the other button, use the same procedures.

6. When you’re done, tap Done.

7. To get out of customize mode, tap the lock screen once again.

Get important alerts using Prioritize Notifications

One of my favorite AI features in iOS 18.4 is a new option for iPhone models that support Apple Intelligence. Select Prioritize Notifications under Apple Intelligence after selecting Settings > Notifications. Apple Intelligence decides which notifications are more likely to be significant to you as they arrive, even though on some days it seems like they come in waves. For instance, random scam messages may be highlighted in favor of texts from contacts. You may activate or disable priority notifications for certain applications on that settings screen.

Set up some of the new tasks available on the Action button

Every previous iPhone model had a separate mute switch, however the Action button on the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 16, iPhone 16E, and iPhone 16 Pro replaced it with a control that could be adjusted. You can set it to do different things, including launching the Camera app, doing many things at once, or even buying coffee. By default, it does the same thing: hold it to toggle Silent Mode on or off. The Action button now has the option to use Visual Intelligence thanks to the iOS 18.4 upgrade. Thus, the AI technology is now available on any iPhone with an Action button, even the iPhone 16E, which does not have the innovative new Camera Control.

iOS 18 adds new functionality to the Action button. Bypassing Control Center and selecting a control of your choosing, you may use Shazam to choose a song or use the Remote interface to navigate Apple TV.

Go to Settings > Action Button to select a different action for the Action button. To choose and do one of the offered options, swipe sideways. To select the particular action to do from the Controls, Shortcut, and Accessibility choices, hit the Choose button.

Give your home screen a radical new look

It may seem like a radical new feature to be able to move icons around, but iOS has always maintained a locked configuration. Apps are added from left to right, top to bottom. Icons could be moved to different displays and their arrangement changed, but that was about it.

Apps in iOS 18 may be placed almost anywhere. Icons obscuring a desktop image of your children or pets is no longer an issue. They may be arranged freely, but they still follow a grid—Apple isn’t going to condone chaos.

Additionally, Dark mode, which offers choices for altering the background image’s brightness and coloring icons, is now available on the whole iPhone home screen. Here’s how to alter the appearance.

App arrangement: To activate “jiggle mode,” touch and hold the home screen. Then, drag the icons to different locations. You can maneuver them into the desired locations with care, but it will still slide them about to cover gaps.

Additionally, you can easily transform compatible apps into widgets that show additional data. For example, maps can display a list of local locations (like restaurants) or a map of your present location with shortcut buttons to search for locations. Locate a row of resize buttons in the menu that displays after touching and holding the app icon. You can drag the handle in the new symbol’s lower-right corner once it has been enlarged beyond the typical icon size. You must touch and hold it again and select the single-icon button to return it to its single icon size.

Set Dark mode: The new Dark mode option for the home and lock screens is a welcome addition for anybody who has ever had to endure the retinal assault of black text on a white backdrop late at night in a dimly lit environment. In order to create a gloomy atmosphere, iOS has previously included a gloomy mode, in which light backgrounds change to black or dark gray, text changes to white or light gray, and other interface components are muted. Only the dock and a few widgets have ever used it extensively on the home and lock screens, before iOS 18.

To get into jiggle mode, first touch and hold the home screen. Select Customize from the menu after tapping the Edit button in the upper-left corner. Select a mode for the backdrop and icons at the bottom of the screen: Light, Dark, or Automatic (I’ll talk about Tinted shortly). In Dark mode, the Dock and folders turn dark gray, and the icons take on black backgrounds. (App developers can choose to create icons for dark mode. Apps that aren’t optimized yet seem darker overall in the interim.)

The backdrop picture also changes in Dark mode. As the day goes on, Apple’s default iOS 18 wallpaper alternates between bright and dark hues, or you may select colors that provide both options. To lessen the light output, the total exposure of the shot is decreased.

If you like dark icons but don’t like the dimmed photo treatment, you may go back to Light mode for the backdrop alone by tapping the sun icon in the bottom-right corner of the preferences box.

Icons that are tinted: This is a novel and unique way to make all of the app icons the same hue. Select Tinted as the icon style from the Customize choices located at the bottom of the screen. Then, you may select your preferred color tint by adjusting the Hue (the slider with the color spectrum) and Luminosity (the slider with the dark to light range).

What happens if you wish to match a backdrop image’s color? To find the desired color, tap the eyedropper button and then drag the reticle; the selected color is shown by the border.

The tint is applied to widgets in addition to icons. To fit the look, the photographs displayed by a widget like Photos appear as duotones.

Big icons: Do you think the labels beneath each program icon are unnecessary? You may now use a single option to enlarge the icons and remove the labels. Tap the Large button after opening the Customize options as shown before.

To apply any of these changes and close the Customize interface, touch anywhere on the screen.

Change up how the Control Center looks

Previously a handy location to rapidly access features like playback volume and airplane mode, Control Center is now a customizable playground under iOS 18. Controls may be added to numerous displays, resized to expose additional information, and positioned wherever you choose.

To access the Control Center, slide down from the upper-right corner (or, on the iPhone SE, swipe up from the bottom). Touch and hold or press the + button in the upper-left corner to go to edit mode.

Drag a control to a different spot on the screen to move it, just like you would with changing applications. The name of the control and its current state (such as Flashlight Off) are typically shown on the bottom-right handle of many of the controls, which also allows for control resizing.

Control Center is now multi-screen as well. Long-pressing the Connectivity block reveals a screen with connectivity choices, including Airplane Mode, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Cellular, and others. Swipe up to see controls for the media that is presently playing, as well as home controls for smart lighting and appliances. If you look closely, you can see that those panels are actually separate controllers that have been enlarged to fill the whole Control Center space.You can move the controls on those displays to change their order. Let’s say you would like Home controls to Now Playing as the initial swipe: Drag the huge Home control up to the previous screen while in editing mode. Now Playing will move to the right to create space.

Tap the − (minus) button that shows to remove controls. Other controls can be added as well: After selecting Add a Control, you can choose from a variety of accessibility settings to beginning a screen recording.

Lock or hide any of your sensitive apps

Even though our phones contain some of our most private information, it’s normal to give a buddy a phone so they may browse pictures or search the internet. They could be more interested than you’re comfortable with, but it doesn’t imply they’re going to spy. iOS 18 includes the option to lock and hide applications, which is useful for data you want to make sure stays hidden or to provide an extra degree of security for sensitive data.

To lock an app, touch and hold its icon. From the menu that displays, select Require Face ID or Require Touch ID (or Require Passcode if Face ID or Touch ID are not enabled). In the following window, choose Require Face ID (or something similar) to confirm your selection.

Touch and hold the app, then select Don’t Require Face ID (or something similar) to skip the authentication stage.

There is no obvious sign that an application is locked; you will discover this when you attempt to launch it. Apps can be hidden in a specific protected folder to achieve an additional level of protection. Select Require Face ID by touching and holding the app, then hit Hide and Require Face ID in the dialog box. On the following page, press Hide App to confirm the action.

After vanishing from the home screen, the app is placed in a Hidden folder at the bottom of the App Library (to access the App Library, slide left beyond your previous home screen). Tap the Hidden folder and use Face ID to gain access to the applications within.

Hidden apps are subject to certain restrictions in iOS 18. Some can only be locked; they cannot be hidden at all, including several of the built-in ones like Notes or Reminders. Additionally, when you swipe away from the App Library or begin an app, the Hidden folder locks itself.

Turn off Loop Videos in the Photos app

A minor but annoying (in my opinion) feature that many applications have included is now included in Photos under iOS 18.2: Videos automatically repeat as you view them until you press the Pause button. Once or again, or when watching brief videos, that can be entertaining. Having to intervene each time to get them to stop bothers me.

I can now do something once. Navigate to Settings > Photos, choose Loop Videos, and disable the feature. A video will automatically play and then, as it should, terminate.In the same Settings screen, disable Auto-Play Motion if you would prefer that the film not start until you press the Play button.

Adjust the view of your calendar

Large new features like hiding applications and locking are fantastic, but so are the little adjustments you see on a daily basis. There are two new ways to see your schedule in the Calendar app.

To examine more or less details in iOS 18, squeeze with two fingers when in the Month view in portrait mode. The monthly grid of days and weeks remains intact when you “zoom in,” displaying individual events first as colored bars and later as named events with times.

The new Multi Day view, which displays two consecutive days to offer you perspective for what’s ahead without requiring you to switch the phone into landscape position and view the Week view, replaces the Day view, which breaks down your day hour by hour. Select Multi Day from the popup menu that appears after tapping the display button at the top of the Single Day display.

Improve movie and TV show dialogue in the TV app

It’s not a new issue to have trouble hearing speech in movies and TV shows. For instance, the Apple TV has long featured a function that allows you to ask Siri, “What did she say?” and it would instantly back up a few seconds, activate subtitles, and play again that segment of the video. Even soundbars that can pick up on muted TV speech are available for purchase. Dialogue is difficult to hear for a variety of reasons, but the TV app in iOS 18 has a sophisticated workaround to help.

hit the More (…) button when watching a video in the TV app, then expand the Audio heading in the resulting menu; if the phone is horizontal, hit the Audio Adjustments button. Select Enhance or Boost after tapping Enhance Dialogue. They both boost the audio of the conversation and reduce background noise.

These are only a handful of iOS 18’s improvements and new features. See our in-depth analysis of Apple Intelligence, further system impressions following months of use, and how these all relate to the iPhone 16 models.