How to use the features of iOS 16 Mail to increase productivity

iOS 16 includes a way to send emails on time, cancel a sent message, and schedule follow-up emails at a later time. Learn how these new features can improve performance.

iOS 16, announced at WWDC ’22, includes many new features, including some long-awaited performance features around iOS communication.

Three of these features revolve around the Mail app and are in high demand, including the ability to schedule emails, cancel sending emails after you click send, and follow up on emails you’ve already received. Let’s look at how these features work and how you can incorporate them into your productivity workflow.

How to use the features of iOS 16 Mail to increase productivity

Remind me later

One of the new features in Mail that many users who receive a lot of emails will appreciate is the ability to mark messages to be reminded later. This will cause the message to be presented to you later when you can actually read it. This is great for work emails, which can often come at different times of the day, but need to be done at a specific time.

Figure A

To use this feature, swipe from left to right in the email inbox, then select the Later option to specify a time. By default, 1 hour is included, tonight and tomorrow, but if you want more detailed control over the reminder time, select Remind me later and then you can choose a specific date and time to remind you of the email.

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Send later

Perhaps one of the most anticipated features of iOS 16 Mail is the ability to schedule emails to be sent later. This is great when writing emails late at night, but you don’t want to send them until the morning. Mail can now handle this when composing email on both the iPhone and iPad.

Figure B

Compose your message as usual, but when you want to send the message later, just press and hold the send button to get the send options later. It will offer some options based on your previous sendings later, or you can tap Send Later to specify the exact date and time when you want the email to be sent from your device.

Cancel sending

Cancel sending is a neat feature that Apple adds to both mail and the Messages app when you want to cancel sending an email after you’ve already touched the send button. Note that you will only have 10 seconds to cancel before the message is actually sent; this feature will not call an email that has already been sent.

Figure C

To use this feature after sending an email, you’ll see a Cancel Send button in the toolbar at the bottom of the Mail app. Touching this button will cancel sending the message and show it back in the editor so you can easily set up the message and try sending it again. However, the Cancel Send option will only be available for 10 seconds before the message is sent.

Note that these tips in this article apply to iOS 16, currently in beta. iOS 16 will be released to the public as a beta version in July 2022 and in a final product in the fall of 2022.