How to Add or Remove VIP Senders in iOS Mail

iPhone & iPod

Updated June 23, 2019

Changing the VIP senders in the Mail app for your iPhone or iPad will adjust which emails your device identifies as important. You can add a VIP sender or remove a VIP sender at any time.

Defining a VIP sender in the Mail app tells your phone to collect all of that recipient's messages in a separate folder and lets you handle their notifications separately from all your other emails. This makes finding important emails super easy.

These directions apply only to iPhone and iPad devices running iOS 6 or newer. Separate instructions can be followed for making VIP senders in macOS.

How to Add VIP Senders in Mail

There are a couple ways to make a sender a VIP in the Mail app. Here's how to do it from an email sent by the recipient:

Open a message from the sender you want added to the VIP list.
Tap their name next to the From line at the top of the email.
Select Add to VIP.

If the recipient is already a contact, then you don't need to open of their emails. You can instead add the contact as a VIP:

Open Mail and navigate to the Mailboxes screen where the list of email folders are located. If you see all your emails instead, tap Mailboxes at the top.
Tap VIP, or choose the (i) button if you already have one or more VIP senders set up.
Choose Add VIP.
Search for and select a contact.

The contact has to have an email address entry or this won't work (i.e., if the contact only has a phone number, then they can't be added to the VIP list).
The new VIP contact will show up in the list.