Turn Off AI Summaries on iPhone: Mail, Messages, and Apple Intelligence (2026)

Apple Intelligence can summarize your texts, emails, and notifications, and some people find the summaries more confusing than helpful. Each kind has its own switch, so you can turn off the ones you don't want and keep the rest. These steps are for iOS 18 and later, including iOS 26 and iOS 27.

The short answer

• Messages (iMessage and texts): Settings, then Apps, then Messages, then turn off Summarize Messages.
• Mail: Settings, then Apps, then Mail, then turn off Summarize Message Previews.
• Notifications: Settings, then Notifications, then Summarize Notifications, then turn off Summarize Notifications.

Turn off message summaries (iMessage and texts)

1. Open Settings.
2. Scroll down and tap Apps, then Messages.
3. Turn off Summarize Messages.

Your conversation list goes back to showing the latest message in each thread instead of an AI summary.

Turn off email summaries in Mail

1. Open Settings, tap Apps, then Mail.
2. Turn off Summarize Message Previews.

Your inbox shows the first lines of each email again. The Summarize button inside an open email only runs when you tap it, so it doesn't need turning off. While you're there, you can also turn off Personalize Smart Replies if you don't want suggested replies.

Turn off notification summaries

1. Open Settings and tap Notifications.
2. Tap Summarize Notifications.
3. Turn it off for everything, or leave it on and switch it off only for the apps whose summaries you don't trust.

On the same Notifications screen, Prioritize Notifications is a separate AI feature that moves "important" notifications to the top. Turn it off too if you'd rather see everything in order.

Safari page summaries

Safari can summarize a web page with Apple Intelligence, but only when you ask: tap the page menu button in the address bar, then Summarize. Nothing is summarized automatically, so there's no switch to turn off. If you're seeing AI answers at the top of Google results in Safari, those come from Google, not Apple. How to turn off Google AI Overviews in Safari covers that.

Gmail app summaries are separate

If you read Gmail in Apple's Mail app, the summaries come from Apple Intelligence and the Mail setting above turns them off. If you use the Gmail app, summaries and AI features come from Google's Gemini and are controlled in the Gmail app's own settings, under your account's smart features. How to turn off AI in Gmail walks through it.

Block Apple Intelligence features more broadly

To restrict features like Writing Tools or image creation, for yourself or a child, use Screen Time: Settings, then Screen Time, then Content & Privacy Restrictions. The options there depend on your iOS version. Apple's summaries can make mistakes, so for anything important, open the original message rather than relying on the summary.