Love it or hate it, email is one of the most essential components of business communication.
Sure, it enables nearly instant communication, but it has also led to people often expecting replies immediately. You can be sure that the number of emails you receive will continue to increase, it may even overwhelm your inbox. If you use the iPhone’s Mail app, this could be an issue – no one wants to scroll past hundreds of emails to find the one important one. Luckily, there is a feature of Mail – VIP Inbox, that could help.
What exactly is VIP Inbox?
The VIP Inbox is a feature that allows you to set certain people as ‘very important’. When they send you an email, it will be automatically highlighted and easier to see. They will also be viewable from a specific Inbox or folder within your main Inbox. The emails aren’t moved, or duplicated, they are just easier to see. This is a great feature for users who receive a large number of emails, most of which are less than important, or users who have too many emails and tend to lose important ones from specific senders, clients, employees, etc.
When you activate this feature, you can set who is a VIP, and even set specific notification sounds and settings, which will make emails from these people stand out when you receive them. You can then select this Inbox when you open the Mail app and then view only emails from VIPs.
How to establish VIP Inbox
If you would like to set up a VIP Inbox, you can do so by:
- Opening the Mail app on your iDevice.
- Tapping on the blue circle with the white arrow.
- Selecting Add VIP and selecting a contact who you would like to be a VIP. If their name is grey, it means they cannot be added as a VIP, and this is likely because you don’t have their email address.
Contacts you select will be automatically registered as a VIP, and any future emails should be labeled as such. Once you have finished selecting your VIP list, you should customize the notifications associated with this Inbox. This can be done by:
- Taping on Settings on your iDevice.
- Selecting Notifications followed by Mail.
- Tapping on VIP.
From here you can customize:
- Alert Style – You can select from None, Banners, Alerts. None will display no notification when you get a new VIP mail, Banners will display a message at the top of your phone which will fade, and Alerts will display a pop-up window that requires an action.
- Badge App Icon – Will display the icon at the top of your device when you get an email. Slide this to On if you want the icon to be displayed.
- New Mail Sound – Allows you to pick a sound that will play when you get a new VIP email. It is a good idea to pick something different from the usual Mail notification sound.
The key factor to be aware of here is that this will not clean your Inbox. What it will do is enable you to better track emails from important contacts. From here, you can focus on reducing the number of emails in your Inbox.
If you would like to learn more about this feature or how the iPhone and iPad can help improve the way you work, please contact us today.
