Apple is about to improve its email application, Mail, on iPads and Macs. Both platforms will soon gain the sameApple Intelligenceemail summary and prioritization systems already available on iPhones though not every iPhone user seems to have embraced the new systems.Whats coming?If you use an iPhone, youll already have experienced the system, which introduces a new user interface in Mail and uses artificial intelligence (AI) in an attempt to prioritize incoming email communications with smart categorization. The latter means your device can look at incoming correspondence and assign it to categories, which currently include the following groupings:All Mail:All your Mail in order of receipt.Primary: All the messages Apple Intelligence thinks might be important to you within this category.Transactions:Invoices, shopping receipts, and key messages from services and organizations, along with banking messages.Updates:All the stuff you subscribe to. (I see this as a quick list of things to unsubscribe from.)Promotions:Most marketing emails, which Apple describes as capturing special offers, deals and more.Dont worry about time-sensitive messages. Apple says these should automatically appear in your Primary account, even if the message belongs to a different category. That means you shouldnt miss an important delivery when it arrives. Mail also uses AI to prioritize mails it believes might be more important, placing these at the top of the Primary mailbox.How to manage categoriesYou can sort of teach Mail how to make better decisions when categorizing incoming emails. When you find an email gathered within an inappropriate category you can intervene. On an iPhone, you do this by opening the message and tapping the three dots at the top right of the message page. A menu will appear, including an option to Categorize Sender. Tap this and you can assign emails from that sender to a more relevant category or leave automatic categorization on if you choose.You cant yet create your own custom groupings, such as for specific projects or workgroups, though you can use Smart Mailboxes to achieve this to some extent. Most observers believe that the capacity to build your own categories will be introduced eventually.Had you noticed?Apple has equipped email with a tool that lets you dig more deeply into the categories active on your device. Open Mail and tap the three dots icon at top right. Here you can switch between Categories and the traditional List view and also tap the About Categories item. When you do, youll be taken to an About Categories page in which youll find interesting information, such as:How many of your messages are seen as being ones that matter the most.How many receipts, orders, and delivery-related emails you received in the last seven days.The frequency and magnitude of promotional email received.What else is coming?The new tools will likely appear as Apple introduces new contextual awareness to its devices, which means Siri will be able to answer questions that relate to whats on your screen or in your apps. That means youll be able to engage in tasks such as adding address data to contact cards, or checking your next dinner date with your gran while looking at a message from her.What people thinkApple drew criticism when it first introduced these features, with some users not adapting to them at all. They complained about the icons used, and didnt seem to understand how to manage the new features or the layout within Mail. But control remained in their hands; disabling Categories is simple.On an iPhone, you open Mail, tap the three dots at the top right of the app, and then tap List View. This returns Mail to the time-based list view of incoming messages you are used to.Which devices can use the feature?Unlike other Apple Intelligence features, these Mail tools are available to most Apple devices capable of running the latest version of Apples operating systems, which basically means you dont need to be using a recent device such as an M-series Mac if you want to use these tools.When will these tools reach iPads and Macs?We anticipate the new Mail features will arrive on iPads and Macs starting with the next major update, which isexpected to arrive in Aprilafter extensive beta testing. That means you can expect the new Mail tools to arrive with iPad OS 18.4 and macOS 15.4, which should appear in spring. It is not clear whether these tools will form part of a wider introduction of more contextual intelligence across Apples devices.You can follow me on social media! Join me onBlueSky, LinkedIn,Mastodon, andMeWe.