When you check a text message, iOS automatically records that you received and read it so you can move on to the next one, whether you responded or not. Although you probably wouldn’t respond immediately to every text message you receive, letting a text slip that you need to respond to can cause a disruption in your work or personal life. Today I learned a way to prevent this from happening.
iOS has a nice feature that lets you mark texts you’ve already read as unread, which reminds you to reread and respond to them later. The functionality of the Messages app is even more useful, as it allows you to view all unread texts exclusively and simultaneously.
There is one small caveat: this feature only works if you exchange messages with other people who use their iPhone Messages app with iOS 16 or later. This means that if you message someone with an older phone that doesn’t support the newer iOS, you won’t be able to mark their texts as unread.
Here are some major techniques you can use to mark texts as unread in iOS, as well as some features from earlier versions of the iPhone operating system that allow you to achieve a similar result.
Press and hold
Jackie Dove
- Launch Messages.
- Tap and hold on the message you want to mark as unread.
- When the resulting menu appears, press the Mark as unread order.
This technique also facilitates a related action, which allows you to read a message without ever having to open it, or alert the sender that you saw it.
Swipe right
Jackie Dove
- Launch Messages.
- Choose a message you want to mark as unread.
- Swipe right and tap the button Mark as unread icon.
This is perhaps the quickest and most effective way to mark an individual message as unread.
Mark multiple messages as unread
Jackie Dove
- Launch Messages.
- Press the To modify button in the upper left corner of the screen.
- Choose Select Messages of the menu.
- Tap to select messages you want to mark as unread.
- Faucet Unread at the bottom of the screen.
Show unread messages
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Now that you have chosen the messages marked unread, you can also view these messages exclusively by enabling the iOS message filter option.
- Go to Settings > Messages.
- Below Message filteringfind Filter unknown senders and activate it.
- Return to the Messages app where the Edit button is now the Filter button.
- Faucet Filter > Unread Messages to see this list.
Ask Siri
Jackie Dove
You can use Siri to read your unread messages. Just say “Hey Siri, read my unread messages.” » Siri will tell you which unread messages are available, recite each message and ask you if you want to play again, after which you can dictate and send your response via Siri.
Disable sending read receipts
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In iOS 13 and later, there is an option to turn off the Send Read Receipts feature, which notifies the sender that you have seen their message.
- Launch the Settings app.
- Swipe down and tap posts.
- Turn it off Send read receipts to fall over.
If iCloud is enabled for the Messages app, any message or conversation you mark as unread on one device will appear the same on all your connected devices.
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