Email, Messaging, & Video Calls Email How to Turn off Highlighted Messages in Apple Mail Adjust Mail's rules to remove highlighting by Heinz Tschabitscher Writer A former freelance contributor who has reviewed hundreds of email programs and services since 1997. our editorial process Heinz Tschabitscher Updated on April 15, 2020 Email Yahoo! Mail Gmail Tweet Share Email In Mail, Apple's native email client, you may find that some messages in your inbox are highlighted. In particular, messages coming from Apple are often highlighted in blue. This happens because of preset rules in Mail's Preferences area. If you don't want your messages from Apple or anyone else highlighted, it's easy to turn off any previously set rules, as well as remove existing highlights. The information in this article applies to Apple Mail 9.3 and later versions. Turn off Message Highlighting Here's how to find and remove any preset Mail highlighting rules, including a rule that highlights Apple messages in blue. In the Mail app, select Mail > Preferences. Go to the Rules tab. Look for rules such as News From Apple, or Apple News, or something similar. Any highlighting rules also will be highlighted in this list. To remove a rule, select the rule and then choose Remove. Select Edit to change the rule, including using a different highlight color. In the dialog that appears asking if you're sure, select Remove again. You've removed the rule and will no longer receive highlighted messages from that sender. Remove Highlighting in Existing Messages If there are highlighted messages in your inbox, it's easy to remove the highlighting effect and return them to a white background. Select a highlighted message in your inbox. To select a range of messages, hold down the Shift key. Select Format > Show Colors from the menu bar. In the color box that appears, select the color palette from the top, and then select White. The selected email messages will no longer be highlighted.