Apple released the first public beta of iOS 18.5 on April 15, more than two weeks after the company released iOS 18.4 to the general public. While that update brought more emoji to all iPhones, the latest beta brings some bug fixes and a few changes to the Mail apps of developers and public beta testers.
Read more: An Expert’s Guide to iOS 18
Because this is a beta, I recommend downloading it only on something other than your primary device. This isn’t the final version of iOS 18.5, so the update might be buggy and battery life may be impacted — it’s best to keep those troubles on a secondary device.
Note that the beta is not the final version of iOS 18.5, so more features could land on your iPhone when it is released. There’s no word on when Apple will release the iOS 18.5update to the general public.
Here’s what could appear on your iPhone with iOS 18.5 soon. And just a reminder that only developers and beta testers who have an iPhone 15 Pro, Pro Max or the iPhone 16 lineup can access any Apple Intelligence features for now. If you have any other iPhone, you won’t have access to those features.
iOS 18.5 tweaks Mail options
Apple introduced a few small Mail app updates in the iOS 18.5 beta. One of those updates makes it easier to adjust the app’s settings by letting you show or hide contact photos in Mail. Contact photos are the images to the left of emails in Mail and help identify who sent those emails.
Mail will show Contact Posters by default, but you can turn them off from within the app with the iOS 18.5 beta. To do so, open Mail, tap the three dots (…) in the top-right corner of your screen and tap Show Contact Photos. Now all your emails will just show the subject line and a preview of the message, similar to how Mail looked before iOS 18.
This option is in iOS 18.4, but it’s buried in Settings and not easy to locate.
Another update concerns Categories. If you have the mode enabled, you can now see all your mail from every category in one place. To do so, open Mail, swipe the categories bar near the top of Mail to the left and tap the new category All Mail.
This new category appears to be a way to simultaneously enable Categories and List View — the pre-Categories view of Mail. By tapping All Mail, you’re viewing your messages free of any categorization, like you would in List View.
Anything else in the beta?
Not that I can tell, and I’m not surprised. Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference is set to happen in June, so iOS 18.5 will likely remain sparse so Apple can focus on iOS 19.
But there will likely be more betas before the iOS 18.5 is released to the public, so there’s plenty of time for Apple to change these features or add more. Apple has not announced when it will release iOS 18.5 to the general public.
For more on iOS 18, here’s what you need to know about iOS 18.4. You can also check out our iOS 18 cheat sheet.
