How to rename email accounts in the Mail app on iPhone, iPad, and Mac

When you go to the Mailboxes screen of the Apple Mail app, you’ll see all the email accounts you added from various services like iCloud, Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, etc. You can rename these account names to make each of them easier to identify and tell apart from the others. In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to do that on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

Rename account name in Apple Mail app

Note: Are you trying to change the sender’s name of your email account? For example, you want emails you send to show as coming from Anthony (your current account name), but want to change this to Anthony Smith? If so, check out our tutorial on how to change your email display name.

Change the mailboxes name in the Mail app

These changes are device-specific and do not sync via iCloud. So, you’ll have to separately rename the mailboxes on your various Apple devices.

On iPhone and iPad

  1. Open the Settings app and tap Mail.
  2. Go to Accounts and select one of the added accounts.
  3. Tap the Account tile.
  4. Enter the new custom mailbox name in the Description field and tap Done.
Change email account name description on iPhone

You can repeat the above steps for all your added email accounts.

Once done, force quit the Mail app and reopen it. You’ll see the new names reflect when you go to the Mailboxes screen.

Important: You can’t rename your iCloud mailbox. This is true for the main Apple ID iCloud account as well as any second or third iCloud email account you have added to your iPhone or iPad. But you can change the name of the iCloud mailbox on a Mac (sadly, the name won’t sync to your iPhone or iPad).

On Mac

  1. Open the Mail app and press the Command + Comma (,) keys together. You can also click Mail > Settings or Preferences from the left of the top menu bar.
  2. Go to the Accounts section.
  3. Select an added email account from the left side.
  4. Enter the desired name in the Description field and press the enter key on your keyboard.
Change description name of email account on Mac

You can repeat these steps for other added accounts, including your iCloud account.

When done, you should see the new mailbox names when you click the arrow (>) for All Inboxes to show all your email accounts.

All inboxes in Mail app on Mac

Other Mail tips: