How to Pin an Email in Apple Mail: A Comprehensive Guide

Your inbox is likely flooded with hundreds of emails every day. Some of those emails are irrelevant and end up in your trash folder right away, but others contain essential information you want to have quick access to. 

Whether it’s your next flight confirmation email or information about an important meeting you must follow up on, you want to find a way to keep those important emails easy to locate. Many email clients offer the feature of pinning emails to help users keep track of important messages. 

Unfortunately, if you’re using Apple Mail as your main email client, you can’t simply pin the important emails to the top of your inbox. But although Mac Mail doesn’t have a native pinning feature, there are several workarounds that can serve the same purpose. 

In this article, we’ll guide you through the alternative ways you can use to “pin” an email in Apple Mail. 

Can You Pin Emails in Mac Mail?

While Mac Mail doesn’t have a built-in pinning feature like other email clients, it offers alternative options to help you prioritize and keep important emails easily accessible. One such feature is flagging emails, which serve a similar purpose to pinning. By flagging an email, you can mark it as important or requiring attention and make it stand out in your inbox. 

Additionally, Mac Mail allows you to create mailboxes and folders to organize your emails further. So, instead of pinning, you can create a dedicated folder or mailbox for your important emails. 

We’ll discuss how to use these workarounds to pinning emails later in this article. 

How to Pin Emails in Mac Mail

Although Apple Mail doesn’t have a direct pinning feature for emails, there are some workarounds you can use to categorize emails and save them separately from the rest of the emails in your inbox. 

If you want to prioritize some emails over others in your Apple Mail inbox, here are some things you can do.

Use the Flagging Feature

In Mac Mail, flagging is the closest thing to pinning. You can even assign different colors to flags to categorize emails based on their urgency or importance. 

To flag an email in Mac Mail, follow these steps:

1. Open Mac Mail and navigate to the email you want to flag.
2. Right-click on the email.
3. Select the Flag option from the context menu.
4. Choose a color for the flag if you want to categorize it further.

Create a Special Mailbox for Important Emails

Another workaround to pinning emails in Mac Mail is creating a dedicated mailbox specifically for important emails. Here’s how to do it: 

1. Open Mac Mail and go to Mailbox in the menu.
2. Select New Mailbox.
3. Choose where you want the mailbox to be located.
4. Give the mailbox a descriptive name like “Important” or “Pinned Emails.”
5. Move important emails to this new mailbox manually or set up rules to do it automatically.

Tips and Tricks to Categorize Emails in Apple Mail

Although using the above-mentioned pinning workarounds in Apple Mail is the best way to locate and organize important emails in your inbox, there are other things you can do to manage your inbox more effectively. 

Here are some practical tips and tricks to categorize and organize your emails in Mac Mail.

Use Smart Folders 

Another way to categorize emails in Mac Mail is by creating smart folders. Smart folders are dynamic folders that automatically gather emails based on specific criteria you define, eliminating the need for manual sorting. 

With smart folders, you can set up custom filters to automatically collect emails that meet certain conditions. For example, you can create a smart folder specifically for flagged emails to make sure that important emails are grouped together and easy to locate. 

Use Keyboard Shortcuts 

To speed up the process of categorizing, moving, and flagging emails in Apple Mail, you can use its default keyboard shortcuts (or the ones you have customized yourself). For instance, you can quickly flag an email or move it to your Favorites folder using a dedicated keyboard shortcut you created. 

Color Code Flags 

You can color-code flags in Apple Mail to categorize emails at a glance based on their urgency, importance, or type. By assigning different colors and meanings to flags, you can create a personalized system that suits your specific needs for categorizing emails. 

For example, you may use the red flag to mark the most important emails, the yellow one for the most urgent ones, and the blue one for emails from your boss or clients. 

Automate with Rules

You can use rules in Mac Mail to automate the tedious task of sorting emails. With rules, you can create customized instructions for how Apple Mail should handle incoming emails based on specific criteria you define, such as the sender’s email address or keywords in the subject line. 

This means you can set up rules to automatically move emails that meet certain conditions directly into your Important or Pinned Emails folder or mailbox. 

Use the Search Bar 

Mac Mail comes with a built-in search feature, making it easy to locate important emails in seconds. Simply type in what you’re looking for in the search bar, and Apple Mail will scour your entire inbox to show you the results that match your search query. 

You can also master the advanced search options in Apple Mail to speed up your search and refine the results. 

Consider an Alternative Email Client With the Pin Emails Feature

Although you can use multiple alternative methods to categorize and organize emails in Apple Mail, you may need more advanced email management features – including pinning emails. If so, you might need to consider switching to an alternative email client. 

Luckily, there are many email clients with advanced pinning options, one of them being Canary Mail. It’s the most advanced email client on the market, with modern features like pinning options, read receipts, and even an AI email assistant. 

Aside from that, Canary Mail allows you to handle multiple email accounts. You can easily sync all your email accounts from various platforms, like Gmail, iCloud, Outlook, Yahoo, ProtonMail, and more – right into one place.

Pin Email in Mac Mail, the Bottom Line

While Mac Mail doesn’t have a default pinning feature, it offers several workarounds that allow you to prioritize and organize important emails in your inbox. Whether you choose to use flags or create a special mailbox for important emails, you have several options to keep your important communication easily accessible.

Still, if you feel that Mac Mail’s features don’t fulfill your email management needs, you can always consider switching to an alternative email client like Canary Mail. 

How to Pin an Email, the FAQs