All of us carry round a whole lot of non-public and delicate materials on our smartphones. That features textual content messages—and there may be occasions if you’d moderately sure messages weren’t out there for public viewing, even in case you nonetheless wish to save your textual content messages.
You might have a sturdy lock display screen mechanism in place, however there’s all the time the prospect another person might get entry to your cellphone, otherwise you may voluntarily lend it to a pal or relative. Regardless of the case, you don’t need another person scrolling via your texts, and right here we’ll focus particularly on tips on how to conceal textual content messages on an iPhone.
One more reason for hiding textual content messages on an iPhone with out deleting them may be merely to cut back litter: Perhaps you don’t wish to should sift via a load of messages to search out the essential ones.
Regardless of the reasoning, that is a type of iPhone message methods that lots of people are eager to know tips on how to do. The strategy you must take to cover messages on an iPhone depends upon the apps you’re utilizing most frequently, and the way precisely you wish to conceal particular textual content messages in your iPhone. It’s additionally value allowing for that these texts can present up in different places the place your Apple ID is linked—like iCloud, or your iPad or Apple Watch—so that you may wish to conceal them right here too.
Cover textual content messages on the iPhone lock display screen
Relying in your iPhone settings, textual content messages and messages from different apps may present up in your lock display screen—not superb in case you get an incoming message that you simply’d moderately hold non-public, and somebody is trying over your shoulder, or your cellphone is face up on a desk when different individuals are round.
To cease this from taking place, head to Settings in iOS, and faucet Notifications then Messages. Select Present Previews and alter this to When Unlocked (Default) to cease the previews from displaying up on the lock display screen, or By no means to cease them displaying up anyplace—so that you’ll have to enter the Messages app to learn them.
You’ll discover the identical Present Previews settings in your different messaging apps, from WhatsApp to Google Chat. The opposite choice, which yow will discover on the identical screens, is to show off notifications for these messaging apps altogether.
Cover textual content messages in iPhone apps
If you recognize your iMessage ideas then you definitely’ll know that each commonplace SMS textual content messages and messages utilizing Apple’s iMessage platform seem within the Messages app in your iPhone. Nevertheless, there’s presently no option to conceal messages from the primary All Messages listing, which exhibits incoming messages in reverse chronological order.
Your solely choices, which you’ll see by lengthy urgent on a dialog, are to delete the message thread totally, or conceal alerts for it—both of these choices might match what you’re desirous to do, however relating to the query of are you able to conceal messages on an iPhone, it’s a no for the primary Messages app.
You do have the choice to dam contacts, which suggests their messages won’t ever be delivered to your inbox in Messages (they received’t learn about it): It’s an excessive means of hiding texts, nevertheless it works. In any Messages dialog, faucet the title or quantity on the prime, then the data button (the small particular person icon) and Block this Caller. You’ll be able to see blocked contacts from Messages > Blocked Contacts in Settings.
Different apps work in a different way although. In WhatsApp, for instance, you may lengthy press on a dialog thread (both a one-to-one chat or a gaggle chat), after which select Archive to dismiss the chat from the primary inbox. Archived chats don’t immediate notifications except you’re particularly talked about or replied to, and you will get at your archived conversations by tapping Archived on the prime of the Chats window.
Faucet Settings after which Chats, and also you’ll discover the choice to archive all of your chats directly, leaving you with a clear inbox. There’s additionally a Preserve Chats Archived toggle change—that is enabled by default, however in case you disable it, archived chats will pop again into the primary messages listing every time there’s a brand new message.
WhatsApp permits you to lock chats too—that is like archiving chats, however lock chats can solely be seen with the passcode on your iPhone, or by way of Face ID or Contact ID. To lock a dialog, faucet on the bar on the prime of the chat, then select Lock Chat. To get to those hidden messages, you must faucet Locked Chats on the prime of the dialog listing.
Fb Messenger for iOS has an archive function too, and once more you get to it by lengthy urgent on a message then selecting the Archive choice that pops up. Faucet the menu button (the three horizontal strains, prime left), to search out the Archive folder: Head into the folder to learn archived messages and restore them to the primary chat listing.
Secret textual content conversations in your iPhone
One other strategy you may take to hiding textual content messages on an iPhone is to ship chats that vanish as soon as they’ve been learn, or after a selected time frame. That is one thing WhatsApp can do, for instance: Faucet the bar on the prime of a one-to-one or group chat, then decide Disappearing Messages to set the choices.
You may also have heard of the invisible ink iPhone trick, which works within the default iOS Messages app. While you’re about to ship a chat over iMessage, lengthy press on the blue ship button, then decide the invisible ink choice earlier than sending it—it means the message received’t be seen to the recipient(s) till it’s tapped on. It’s one other means of hiding textual content messages on the iPhone.
It’s value spending just a little little bit of time to see what the choices are inside your messaging app of alternative relating to hiding messages, or at the least muting their notifications. It’s not potential to cover textual content messages on each chat app on the iPhone, however many of those apps do have a couple of associated choices you may mess around with.
