How to mute an email conversation on iPhone

If you’re growing weary of constant notifications on group emails or just from a particularly chatty friend, the new feature of muting conversations in Mail that Apple introduced with iOS 13 could come in useful. We show you the quick and easy way to restore serenity to your inbox once more.

Using the mute feature in Mail

There’s no need to block people or find other elaborate methods for keeping your email free from continual messages in a specific thread, as iOS 13 now allows the simple step of muting a conversation. This can be particularly useful if you’ve been copied into a discussion about a work project or family-wide email thread planning an upcoming event.

There are a couple of different routes you can take to achieve this blessed state of mutedness, both of which only takes a few seconds to enact. The simplest is to open Mail, find the thread in question and swipe left to reveal the hidden options. Select More, then from the list that appears choose Mute.

You should now see an icon appear to the right of the email that shows a bell with a line through it. That denotes that the conversation is now muted.

The second way to apply the feature is to open the actual email, tap on the arrow icon at the bottom of the screen, then select Mute from the menu that appears. Once again, the crossed-out bell should be seen by the email.

Controlling how muted threads are treated

Apple gives users a couple of different choices when it comes to treating emails that come in when a conversation is muted. To find these go to Settings > Mail > Mute Thread Action, where you’ll be presented with two options.

These are Mark as Read and Archive or Delete. If you feel like you might want to refer back to the conversation at a later date, choose the first one. But, should the conversation be one that you’re no longer interested in then Archive or Delete is the way to go.

Unmuting an email thread

Finally, if you want to restore privileges to the email thread, then all you need to do is repeat the steps outlined above for muting, only this time choose the Unmute option instead.

For more examples of what you can do with Apple’s latest update to its iPhone software, read our Best iOS 13 features, How to unsubscribe from junk mail in iOS 13, and iOS 13 vs iOS 12 guides.