How to Stop Organizing Emails by Thread on the iPhone 5

Your iPhone 5 has the ability to organize your email messages by thread in an effort to make it easier to access all of the information that you have accumulated in your inbox based on the topic of a string of emails. This organization is apparent when you click an email message with a gray number to the right of it, then you are shown an additional screen which lists all of the messages in that thread. This can be a convenient feature, but not everyone prefers to have their messages sorted like this. Fortunately it is a setting that you can turn off, which will revert to the standard practice of simply displaying the messages in your inbox chronologically. So continue reading below to learn how to stop organizing emails by thread on the iPhone 5.

Disabling Email Organization by Thread on the iPhone

There is a similar feature in Gmail that also organizes by thread, so you are probably familiar with this setting if you have a Gmail account. It can be helpful if you receive a very high volume of email messages and are struggling to locate a message that was part of a conversation. But if you either do not receive a large number of emails, or if you simply prefer a chronological listing, then disabling thread organization is probably a good choice for you.

Step 1: Tap the Settings icon.

Open the iPhone's Settings menu
Open the iPhone’s Settings menu

Step 2: Scroll to Mail, Contacts, Calendars and select it.

Open the "Mail, Contacts, Calendars" menu on your iPhone
Open the “Mail, Contacts, Calendars” menu on your iPhone

Step 3: Scroll down to the Mail section, then move the slider to the right of Organize by Thread to the Off position.

Turn off the "Organize by Thread" option
Turn off the “Organize by Thread” option

When you return to the Mail app, you will notice that thread organization is gone, and all of your messages are simply listed based upon when they were received.

Now that you know how to stop organizing emails by thread on an iPhone 5, you can make it easier to find your emails in the default chronological sorting method.

There are some other helpful settings on this menu screen, including the ability to set the default email account on your iPhone 5. If you find that you always have to change the From email account when you are composing a message on your phone, then this option can be a real time saver.

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