Apple is bringing back its AI-generated Notification Summaries with iOS 18.4, supposedly with improvements to address the fake news controversy that got the feature pulled earlier this year. Despite this rocky start, Apple Intelligence still peppers many other summarization tricks across iPhone, and thankfully, most of the others are much more useful.
This feels like a good time to recap all the places you’ll find these summaries, how to make the most of them, and how to turn off any that you don’t like.
Before you start
To use any of these summarization tools, you’ll need Apple Intelligence enabled. Ensure you have a compatible device, then go to Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri, and make sure it’s activated.
Six ways to summarize
Messages: Long group chats can be overwhelming, but Apple Intelligence helps by summarizing messages you’ve missed so you don’t have to scroll endlessly to catch up. You’ll see this summary appear automatically under a conversation in the main list of the Messages app when enough unread messages build up.
You can toggle this feature from Settings > Apps > Messages > Summarize Messages.
Mail: Apple Intelligence can summarize emails, helping you quickly assess their importance. Instead of tapping in to read an email in full, you’ll see a short summary beneath the subject line. For more detail, open the email in full and press the Summarize button at the top of the screen. This will generate a longer overview of key points.
You can toggle this feature from Settings > Apps > Mail > Summarize Message Previews. AI is also used to surface important ‘Priority Mail’ to the top of your inbox, which you can toggle from the … menu in the Mail app itself.
Notifications: This feature turns long notifications, or stacks of notifications from a single app, into a one-line summary you can take in at a glance. It has the potential to be really helpful, but its output isn’t always accurate. With iOS 18.4, Apple promises a smarter, more refined version – but we’d still recommend you don’t rely on this feature for anything important.
You can toggle this feature from Settings > Notifications > Summarize Notifications. You’ll then be given the chance to choose which type of apps to summarize, meaning you can disable it for news and/or messages if you don’t trust it to get the correct meaning across in a one-line alert.
Safari: Long web pages and articles can be magically condensed into a bite-sized summary of key points. This function is bundled into Safari’s reader view, which you can access via the Page Settings menu to the left of the address bar. Tap Show Reader and you’ll see a Summary button. Tapping it will generate a quick overview, allowing you to decide whether the full article is worth reading.
This function can’t be switched off entirely in Settings, but it’s very easy to avoid if you don’t like it.
Notes: Audio recording saved to Notes are given a full written transcript, which is great for scanning through when you don’t have time to listen to a lengthy recording. It also works with clips from the Voice Notes and Phone apps, which are both automatically saved to Notes. Even better, this feature summarizes the entire transcript into a few short lines. Perfect for dissecting meetings, lectures, or long rambling trains of thought.
This feature cannot be turned off.
Text: Finally, Apple Intelligence gives you the chance to summarize any block of text you like using its systemwide Writing Tools. Anywhere you can select or enter text, you can access this generative writing capability. Either tap the Writing Tools button from the iOS keyboard, or long press a text selection and choose Writing Tools from the pop-up menu. Then simply choose the Summary option and watch AI work its magic.
Disabling this feature is slightly more convoluted, but if you must: go to Settings > Screen Time > Content & Privacy Restrictions, enable restrictions, then navigate to Intelligence & Siri > Writing Tools and choose Don’t Allow.
Be intentional
Personally, I love the transcript summaries in Notes, but turned off summaries in Messages to avoid potential miscommunication. I find Mail’s summaries helpful for quickly parsing newsletters and cold emails, while the Safari highlights are a decent time saver so long as you don’t treat its facts as gospel. Finally, despite the improvements to those controversial Notifications, I still don’t trust them to get news stories or chat messages right, so I limited the feature accordingly. Writing Tools can be hit and miss, but the summary function is probably its best feature and I do use it occasionally.
I wouldn’t necessarily say everyone should do the same as me, though – make your own judgment and tailor these Apple Intelligence features to your liking!