How to Hide Text Messages on iPhone

We all carry a lot of private and sensitive material with us on our smartphones. This also applies to text messages. There may be times when you prefer that certain messages are not accessible to the public, even if you still want to keep your text messages.

You may have a robust lock screen mechanism, but there’s always the chance that someone else will gain access to your phone, or you’ll voluntarily lend it to a friend or family member. Either way, you don’t want anyone else scrolling through your text messages, and here we will focus specifically on how to hide text messages on an iPhone.

Another reason to hide text messages on an iPhone without deleting them may simply be to reduce clutter: you may not want to have to scroll through a whole bunch of messages to find the most important ones.

Whatever the reasoning, this is one of those iPhone messaging tricks that many people are dying to know how to do. The approach you should take to hide messages on an iPhone depends on the apps you use most often and how exactly you want to hide specific text messages on your iPhone. Also note that these texts may appear in other places that your Apple ID is associated with, such as iCloud, or your iPad or Apple Watch, so you may want to hide them here as well.

Hide text messages on iPhone lock screen

Depending on your iPhone settings, text messages and messages from other apps may appear on your lock screen. This isn’t ideal if you receive an incoming message that you would prefer to keep private and someone is looking over your shoulder or if your phone is in disarray. lying on a table when other people are around.

To prevent this, go to Settings in iOS and tap notifications Than To inform. To elect Show examples and change this to When unlocked (default) to prevent the previews from appearing on the lock screen, or Never to prevent them from appearing anywhere, so you have to go to the Messages app to read them.

You will find the same Show examples settings in your other messaging apps, from WhatsApp to Google Chat. The other option, which you can find on the same screens, is to disable notifications for these messaging apps altogether.

Hide text messages in iPhone apps

If you know your iMessage tips, you know that both standard text messages and messages via Apple’s iMessage platform will appear in the Messages app on your iPhone. However, there is currently no way to hide messages in the main All Messages list, which displays incoming messages in reverse chronological order.

Your only options, which you can see by long-pressing on a conversation, are to delete the message thread completely or hide warnings for it. Both options may suit what you want to do, but when it comes to the question of whether you can hide messages on an iPhone, it’s a no for the main Messages app.

You do have the option to block contacts, which means their messages will never be delivered to your inbox in Messages (they won’t know about it): It’s an extreme way to hide text messages, but it works. In a Messages conversation, tap the name or number at the top, then tap the info button (the little person icon) and Block this caller. You can view blocked contacts from Messages > Blocked contacts in Settings.

However, other apps work differently. For example, in WhatsApp you can long-press on a conversation thread (a one-on-one chat or a group chat) and then choose Archive to close the chat from the main inbox. Archived chats won’t show notifications unless you’re specifically mentioned or responded to. You can access your archived conversations by tapping Archived at the top of the Chats window.

Crane Institutions and then Chats, and you’ll find the option to archive all your chats at once, so you have a clean inbox. There also is a Keep chats archived toggle switch: This is enabled by default, but if you disable it, archived chats will reappear in the main message list whenever there is a new message.

WhatsApp also allows you to lock chats. This is similar to archiving chats, but locking chats can only be viewed with your iPhone passcode, or via Face ID or Touch ID. To lock a conversation, tap the bar at the top of the chat and then choose Lock chat. To get to these hidden messages you have to tap Locked chats at the top of the conversation list.

Facebook Messenger for iOS also has an archive feature, and again you can reach this by long-pressing on a message and then pressing the Archive option that appears. Tap the menu button (the three horizontal lines, top left) to find the Archive folder: Go to the folder to read archived messages and return them to the main chat list.

Secret text conversations on your iPhone

Another approach you can use to hide text messages on an iPhone is to send chats that disappear once read, or after a certain period of time. This is something WhatsApp can do, for example: tap the bar at the top of a one-on-one or group chat, then choose Disappearing messages to set the options.

You may also have heard of the iPhone invisible ink trick, which works in the standard iOS Messages app. When you’re about to send a chat via iMessage, long press the blue send button and then choose the invisible ink option before sending. This means that the message is not visible to the recipient(s) until it is tapped. It is another way to hide text messages on iPhone.

It’s worth spending some time to see what the options are in the messaging app of your choice when it comes to hiding messages, or at least muting their notifications. It’s not possible to hide text messages in every chat app on iPhone, but many of these apps do have a few related options you can play with.