New In iOS 6: How To Set Up Your VIP Inbox

Whether you’re new to iOS, or just want to pick up some useful tips and tricks, we’re here to help. This is iOS Advice.

The Mail app received a big update in iOS 6. New features such as custom notifications, individual mailbox signatures, and the ability to put rendered HTML within those signatures make the Mail app in iOS 6 very powerful.

Another new feature in iOS 6 is VIP inbox. This allows you to view email from specific contacts in one convenient folder. It’s a very useful feature for those who have multiple email accounts, or receive a lot of messages on a daily basis.

If you’d like to learn how to use VIP inbox, watch the video or follow the steps below:

Note: Any email addresses you wish to add to the VIP inbox must be added to your device as a contact.

Step 1: Open the Mail app on your device. Make sure you’ve backed out of any inbox folders and you’re on the main “Mailboxes” screen.

Step 2: Tap on the “VIP” row in the list of mailboxes.

Step 3: Next, tap on the “Add VIP…” button to begin selecting contacts. Any contacts without a specified email address won’t be selectable. Once you’ve selected a contact you’d like to add, you’ll be taken back to the previous screen. Continue this process by tapping “Add VIP…” until you’ve added all of the contacts you’d like to have in the VIP inbox. If you’d like to delete a contact, swipe across it and tap on “Delete.”

Step 4: You can also setup custom alerts and notifications for new messages that arrive in your VIP inbox. Tap on “VIP Alerts,” then scroll down to the bottom of the screen and select the row labeled “VIP.” Choose your custom alert and notification style, then back out of these settings to your home screen.

If you’d like to edit the contacts in your VIP inbox, open the Mail app and tap on the blue arrow within the “VIP” row from the “Mailboxes” screen.

Now that you’ve learned how to setup your VIP inbox, if there’s something else you’d like to see on iOS Advice, please let us know. Send us an emailwith your question or comment and we might feature your suggestion in a future article. If you need a little more advice, check out our other helpful tutorials.