Lots of people manage their life out of their email inbox. There's no shame in that; it's a workable strategy — particularly if the number of inbox messages doesn't get too overwhelming — but it's easy for an inbox to get overrun with loads of email messages. Some of these messages will be important, but many of them not. Because of the size of your inbox, when it comes time to quickly access an important message, it can often be akin to finding a needle in a haystack.

Fortunately, there's a feature built into the Mail app in iOS that can help.

Why should you flag it?

Flags are simply a means of marking messages. Why would you flag a message? Here are a few reasons:

  • As a reminder to come back to the message at a later time and follow up on something in it.
  • To mark a message that applies to a particular project or topic.
  • To mark a message that arise time-sensitive.

Flagging a message

Flagging a message is easy.

  1. Open Mail.
  2. Open any email message. It can be located in any mailbox, not just the inbox.
  3. Tap the Flag button.

    Flagging a message

  4. Tap Flag. An orange flag icon will appear on any flagged message.

    A flagged message

If you prefer to use an orange bullet instead of a flag icon, do this:

  1. Tap Settings.
  2. Tap Mail.
  3. Tap Flag Style.
  4. Tap Color.

Display the flagged mailbox

Built into Mail is a Flagged mailbox which will present all flagged email messages from all your mailboxes, which is super-convenient.

If it doesn't already appear in your list of mailboxes, here's how to display it.

  1. Open Mail.
  2. In the list of mailboxes, tap Edit.
  3. Tap the circle for the Flagged mailbox.

    Add the flagged mailbox

  4. Tap Done.

  5. Tap the Flagged mailbox to see all the messages you've flagged.

    The Flagged mailbox

Raise the Flag

What uses have you found for flagging email messages? Let us know in the comments below.