Ever click on the “More” option after tapping on an email attachment on iOS Mail? You’re provided a list of options that you may or may not use that frequently. But what if you don’t want to see Add to Notes as a feature? Or maybe you prefer to always save your attachments to iCloud Drive? Do you like to take a peek using Quick Look before sharing, copying, saving, or printing the attachment? If your answer is yes to any of these questions, learn how to customize your iPhone’s mail attachment options.
Within your iPhone’s or iDevice’s Mail app, you change the settings to make your preferred options as the ones that show up first when you press and hold an attachment in your e-mail.
And the good news is that you can easily customize these settings so that it only shows you the features that you want and use the most. This modification saves you time, so you don’t have to tap on the “More” button while you work with your e-mail attachments.
On your Mail Share Sheet, press and hold to rearrange icons within each row of share options
Select the More button to turn some share options on or off and to change order of appearance
If a share option isn’t available, download its app and toggle it on
Quick Tip on iOS Mail Attachment
First, open the email with the attachment. If the file isn’t already downloaded, tap it to download the file. Next, tap and hold on the attachment. That action opens the Mail Share sheet.
The Mail Share sheet has some features available to you after you press and hold an e-mail’s attachment on your iOS Mail. These features are incorporated into two or more rows. The first row shows you AirDrop allowing you to share the email attachment directly.
The second row has the usual, Message, Mail Add to Notes, Facebook, etc. depending upon your settings and configuration on your iPhone. Swipe right and left to see all your options for each row.
For folks using iOS11, you also have a “Save to Files” option in your Share Sheet for saving photos, documents, and other files to the Files app. Upon selecting “Save to Files,” a pop-up menu lets you choose your location. Save to Files replaces Add to iCloud Drive.
The Importance of the Tail End of Your Mail Share Sheet
At the end of EACH ROW is the More button, identifiable by its three dot icon. Tap on the More button to open the row customization menu. It’s this menu that allows you to choose what you want to see as options when you tap on your email attachment for each row of the Mail Share Sheet. If you don’t want or need an option to appear, toggle it OFF if available (certain features like Mail and Messages cannot be toggled off.)
Change the Order of Things
The row customization menu also allows you to rearrange your options order of appearance by pressing the three horizontal bars and then dragging to a different location. This rearranges the sequence of the attachment options available to you and the order in which they appear on your Mail Share Sheet.
Or if you prefer, you can change the order of things on the Mail Share Sheet itself. Just press and hold the icon of the item you wish to reorder and move it to its new position within the row. Unfortunately, you cannot move icons into a different row, only to its current row.
For iDevices with more than two rows, check each row and locate that row’s More button. Tap on it and customize following the instructions above.
Not Seeing An Attachment Option in the Mail Share Sheet?
If for any reason, you cannot find a preferred option, such as Facebook sharing or Save to Dropbox, when tapping on your e-mail attachment, there are a couple of reasons why they aren’t appearing. First, you must have that app installed on your iDevice for it to appear as an available option. So if you want to Save to Dropbox, you need first to install Dropbox on your iDevice. Same goes for Facebook, Twitter, Google Drive, and so forth.
It’s also possible that you have not enabled these options by toggling them ON. Once you enable these services by tapping on the More button and toggling into the ON position, they are available to you as options when you press and hold on the email attachment.
And remember that for folks using iOS11, the Add to iCloud Drive option is now Save to Files.
Take A QuickLook
We love using Mail Share Sheet’s Quick Look feature before we share, copy, send or print ANY attachment. Quick Look lets people preview most attachments, including documents, images, and other types of files. After downloading an attachment, Mail shows the attachment’s icon and file name within the message. Tapping on the Quick Look icon displays a preview of this attachment.
When you open a multiple page file with Quick Look, you scroll through it to see the entire document. Quick Look even allows copying, selecting, look up, and sharing! It also features some accessibility options to speak or spell out what you highlight in your Quick Look content. Pretty awesome! And that’s why we think QuickLook is one of the most underrated (and unknown) features of Mail.
Summary
So now, opening attachments the way you want is easy! No more searching your Mail Share Sheet for the app you want–it’s right there. And if it’s not in the place you want, just do a quick rearrangement. So if you don’t want Add to Notes or Google Drive as a feature, just toggle it OFF in your More menu. Or if you always save attachments to your iCloud Drive, toggle Add to iCloud Drive ON in your More menu. It’s that easy!
Obsessed with tech since the early arrival of A/UX on Apple, Sudz (SK) is responsible for the original editorial direction of AppleToolBox. He is based out of Los Angeles, CA.
Sudz specializes in covering all things macOS, having reviewed dozens of OS X and macOS developments over the years.
In a former life, Sudz worked helping Fortune 100 companies with their technology and business transformation aspirations.
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