Mastering Inbox Placement in 2025: Apple Mail’s Categories and Gmail’s Promotions Tab

Nathan She and Pankaj Kumar

| April 21, 2025

As email usage continues to rise year over year, effective inbox management plays a crucial role in day-to-day communication. Like Gmail, Apple has introduced its own system of organization called “Categories,” offering a more granular breakdown of incoming emails. This update is designed to enhance the Apple Mail user experience through better organization. However, it may take time for users to acclimate. Currently, this feature is only available on iOS devices and does not extend to the desktop app.

While any change to inbox layout can require an adjustment period, these updates present an opportunity for marketers to rethink their email campaign strategies. Rather than focusing on how to bypass Categories and Promotions tabs, marketers should prioritize delivering intent-driven content that aligns naturally with these designations.

Apple Mail Categories

Apple’s categories are divided into four distinct tabs:

Primary – Emails from known contacts or time-sensitive messages
Transactions – Order confirmations, receipts, and other transactional messages
Updates – Newsletters and social media notifications
Promotions – Marketing and sales communications

This grouping is enabled by default upon updating to iOS 18.2 or later. While it is automatically applied, recipients can manually adjust these groupings.

Gmail Promotions Tab

Since its launch in 2013, Gmail’s Promotions tab has been a common frustration for marketers. Although there have been no major functionality changes, we’ve observed an increase in promotional tab placement since Q3 2024. While we don’t have global data, anecdotal evidence from live campaigns and seed testing indicates a shift: senders who previously saw a 50/50 split between the Primary and Promotions tabs now report a ratio of about 25/75, with most emails landing in the Promotions tab. This trend may have started due to heightened filtering during the holiday season, but our testing indicates that it has persisted into Q1 2025.

Impacts on Email Marketer

Open Engagement
A decrease in open rates is expected as users adapt to more structured inboxes. Because removing categories or moving emails from the Promotions tab are manual actions, both opens and clicks may decline temporarily, until users become more familiar with the layout.

Potential Shift in Email Visibility
Emails that previously landed in the Primary inbox may now appear under a specific category or in the Promotions folder. Marketers will need to adapt strategies to maintain engagement by refining content so that filters can better understand and classify messaging.

Enhanced Email Engagement Signals
Click-through rates and time spent reading may influence categorization in Apple Mail. With Apple Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) limiting open tracking, marketers should rely more on deeper engagement metrics, such as clicks, conversions, and replies.

Intrinsic Benefits of Default Organized Inboxes

Final Thoughts and Recommendations

While Gmail holds the largest share of public email addresses, Apple Mail dominates in client usage. Of the estimated 4.5 billion global email users, approximately 55% (2.5 billion) use Apple Mail, with Gmail close behind at 31% (1.4 billion).

This means that while many email lists are full of Gmail addresses, users are likely opening and engaging with those emails through Apple Mail on iOS. Because Apple’s new categories are enabled by default, many users may not even realize they’ve adopted the new inbox structure, potentially explaining the drop in engagement seen in Q4 2024 and Q1 2025.

It’s essential to remember that the Promotions tab isn’t the spam folder. It’s not a penalty—it’s part of a broader shift toward smarter inboxes. Engagement may fluctuate as users adapt, but thoughtful, targeted messaging will continue to stand out.

Keep messages focused. Avoid using multiple CTAs or excessive linking, as this can appear overly promotional.
Add personalization. Tailored content signals relevance and can help classify the message as transactional.
Encourage replies. Asking for engagement (e.g., for a coupon or feedback) sends positive signals to ISPs.

While Apple Mail’s new categorization has received mixed feedback, many users stick with the default. Others may disable it, but most won’t bother. That’s why it’s essential to continue testing and optimizing content to keep subscribers engaged, no matter where your message lands.