Apple Messages « iOS & iPhone

How To: Use Your iPhone's New 'Check In' Feature to Let Contacts Know When You Arrive Safely at Your Destination

Check In is a new safety feature built into the Messages app that can automatically notify a family member, friend, another contact, or a group the moment you arrive safely at a destination, giving them peace of mind in knowing you're all right. If you never reach your stopping place, it will also send them clues to help them figure out what went wrong.

How To: Quickly Find the Conversations with the Most Photos and Videos in Your iPhone's Messages App

There's a quick way to see who you or somebody else has been chatting with the most in the Messages app for iOS and iPadOS. More specifically, it shows which conversations have the most attachments, such as photos and videos, giving you an idea of which chats are the most active visually.

How To: Apple's Messages App Has a Hidden Feature You Can Use Only by Doing This

Apple has a secret iMessage effect so hidden that there's only one way to unlock it, and it's not by digging through the Messages app's settings, tools, effects, or interface. However, it's used the same way whether you're messaging from an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, so it's easy to remember once you know.

How To: Your iPhone Can Scan Images to Identify and Show Information About Art, Insects, Landmarks, Plants, and More

When you take a photo of something interesting, like a landmark, piece of art, animal, or plant, there's a good chance you'll also want to know more about that something than just what you see in the frame. When this happens, you can take advantage of Apple's content recognition service for iOS and iPadOS without having to install any third-party apps.

How To: Apple's New Cutout Tool Magically Isolates Subjects and Removes Backgrounds from Images on Your iPhone

One of the most useful new features Apple included on iOS 16 lets you instantly lift the subject out of a photo, separating it from the background. Once extracted, you can paste, save, or drop the cutout wherever you want as a new image, and you can even make it a sticker in messaging apps.

How To: There's an Easy Way to See All the Unsent Messages in Your iMessage Conversations

While you can quickly see the edit history of a modified iMessage in the Messages app, there's no way to view an iMessage that somebody in the conversation deleted unless you happened to see it before it disappeared. But that's only true if you didn't implement these security measures on your iPhone.

How To: Mark Texts and iMessages as Unread on Your iPhone, iPad, or Mac

We've been able to mark all or individual unread conversations as read in Apple's Messages app since iOS 8. Eight years later, Apple is finally letting us mark individual text and iMessage chats as unread.

How To: Your iPhone Has a New Messaging Feature That's Way Simpler Than Anything Android Has

Editing and unsending iMessages are definitely the stars of the Messages app's latest app update, but they aren't the only new features worth exploring. One tool you may not have discovered yet fixes an issue that's plagued the Messages app since the beginning.

How To: 15 Hidden iMessage Features for iPhone You Probably Didn't Know About

There are many things Apple doesn't tell you about its products, and that's definitely the case when it comes to its Messages app. Hidden features lurk in your SMS and iMessage conversations just waiting to be found, and we've unearthed some of the most secret ones.

How To: The Messaging Trick You Never Knew You Needed

Whether you're wielding an iPhone, iPad, Mac, Android phone or tablet, or even a Windows PC, this little-known secret holds the key to effortless assistance and unwavering obedience. Intrigued? I thought so.

How To: Trigger iMessage Effects with Just a Keyword

One of the coolest aesthetic features of iMessage is its animated message effects. If you're like many users, you might even have discovered them by accident, where wishing your friend a "Happy Birthday!" or congratulating them on a promotion unexpectedly flooded your screen with balloons or confetti.

How To: Your iPhone Can Help Keep Clutter from Piling Up in Mail and Messages — Here's How

Many of your accounts online likely require two-factor authentication (2FA) or two-step verification (2SV) to confirm your identity when logging in, and there's a good chance the second factor or step for each is a one-time email or SMS verification code. If you get a lot of email and SMS codes, it can clutter your Mail and Messages apps with junk if you don't delete the messages after signing in.

How To: Your iPhone's Messages App Has 22 New Must-Try Features — And You Probably Didn't Know About Half of Them

Your iPhone's Messages app has some impressive new features and changes with iOS 17, and you've probably already noticed some of them just by using the updated app. But there are less apparent features, even hidden ones, that have likely eluded you that you're going to want to know about. There are even some new Messages features yet to be officially released.

How To: Edit iMessages So Nobody Can See the Edit History

Apple lets you edit iMessages in the Messages app on iOS 16 and later, but everyone in the chat can see all the edits between the final and original text. Thankfully, there's an easy workaround to stop that from happening when you only want them to see the last message and nothing else.

How To: Memoji's Big Update Has 40 New Looks and Changes You Need to Know About

Apple's iOS 16 for iPhone includes even more ways to customize your Memoji characters, and it even removes some barriers that were in place in iOS 15.

How To: Apple Just Improved Messaging on Your iPhone with 26 New Must-Try Features

If you haven't noticed yet, there are a lot of new features hiding in your iPhone's Messages app, and some of them are things users have been requesting for a long time. While iMessage is getting a lot of attention by letting us edit and unsend messages, it's only just the start of a pretty big update.

How To: Edit Your Sent iMessages to Fix Spelling Errors and Other Mistakes

Apple finally lets us fix sent iMessages, and I can honestly say it's a game-changer. Editing messages after sending them can prevent miscommunication and allow you to fix embarrassing mistakes before the other person notices them. It's one of the Messages app's coolest new features, but there are some important things for you to know about how it works.

How To: iOS 16 Changes How You Record and Send Audio Messages on Your iPhone — Here's How It Works Now

To record an audio message in the Messages app on iOS 15, you would tap and hold the audio messages button in the text entry field of the conversation. Then, you could let go to preview it before sending it or swipe up to send it right away. That's no longer the case on iOS 16 for iPhone.

How To: Disable the iMessage Typing Bubble Indicator So Others Don't Know You're Currently Active in the Chat

Apple's iMessage is one of the main reasons to use an iPhone, and there's a lot you can do in chats without being overly complicated. But there's one issue that continues to drive people nuts, and that's the blue typing bubble indicator with the moving ellipsis (•••). Can you stop it? Not officially, but there are workarounds.

How To: Take Back iMessages You Already Sent So Your Recipients Never See Them

You can quickly correct a mistake in an iMessage you send, but the recipient will still see whatever you originally wrote since there's a history of edits. When you don't want the other person in the conversation to know what you originally sent, there's a better thing you can do.