Why did I leave the iOS Mail app?

You know how annoying it is when your options are limited and you want to do something that should be fairly simple and straightforward like deleting an email, but you can’t! Very frustrating, isn’t it?

So that’s exactly how I feel about the iOS Mail app.

The problem:

I was using the app for several years (don’t know why) and I got to know its limitations. I guess I felt comfortable. The change occurred when I started looking for a new job and was bombarded with ‘alerts’ from different online job platforms. For some reason, I couldn’t delete these emails — only archive them (What is archive? Where do they actually go when they are archived?).

I thought to myself, “There must be better apps for this”, and there are actually. Most other email apps have such basic functions as deleting an email or selecting a few emails, which, for some reason, iOS Mail app doesn’t. Why did I stick with it for so long?

Gmail app features

Yahoo email app features

What are the specific problems with iOS Mail app?

1. You can’t choose a specific email.
2. You can’t choose several emails.
3. You can’t delete an email (only archive it)
4. The features they use on swipe are not clear.

You can’t choose several emails

The features they use on swipe are not clear

You can only delete your own emails and only from within a thread

My solutions:

Option 1:
Marking several emails by long pressing on them. By doing so the toolbar which normally appears (Flag, Add to a folder, Archive, Reply) still appears, but the New Email icon changes to Bin icon allowing the user to delete the selected message(s).

Option 1: Marking several emails by long pressing on them

Option 2:
By swiping right the user gets frequently used features like Forward, Flag, and Delete represented by icons the user can understand (unlike the ones that are currently used).

Option 2: Frequently used features

Takeaway:

The iOS Mail served me well for a few years but unless they add new functionality, which other email apps already have, I won’t be using it much longer and I don’t think I’m alone.

As designers, we should always question and attempt to improve any product we interact with.

Tools & Thanks!
Sketch & Principle (design and animations), Notebook (for sketching concepts)

Get in Touch:
My portfolio: tzmdesign.com
Facebook: Tzvi Meller
Dribble: tz_m1

That’s all for now. Hope you liked my case study. More will follow!
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Thank you,
Tzvi.