There are times when you want to keep your conversations secret due to many reasons. If you don’t know how to do so, don’t worry, we got your back. Here is how you can hide messages on your iPhone easily.
What you will see?
Hide messages on iPhone
There are moments in our life when we need to engage in secret texting. This can be when you are planning a surprise party for a loved one or having a private conversation with a friend or coworker that you don’t want others to see. There are a variety of choices available. This ranges from hiding message notifications so they never appear on your lock screen to putting the entire communication chain in a folder where no one will see it. Having the ability to hide messages on your iPhone is one of the best iPhone tips and tricks. It’s great for maintaining your privacy and security. Moreover, it helps in preventing the disclosure of sensitive information to others.
While it is not recommended to send sensitive information over text messages, such as passwords or credit card numbers, however, we’ve all done it, even if we know the risks. When this happens, having the ability to conceal texts on your iPhone or iPad can be really useful.
Hide message notifications
When it comes to hiding messages on your iPhone, the first thing you need to do is to go to Settings. Then go to Notifications and scroll down to your preferred messaging app. To keep your privacy, go to its unique notification settings and look for the following options:
- Allow notifications: If you turn this off, you won’t get any alerts from this app. So, you’ll have to check the app to see if you’ve any new messages.
- Alerts: You can keep notifications turned on but turn off the Lock Screen option to see only the message alert in your Notification Center.
- Show Previews: By turning on lock screen alerts, you may ensure that they can only be viewed by you after unlocking your phone with Face ID, or that they will never be unlocked.
- Sounds: Use this menu to turn off the app’s default alert tone and vibration so your phone doesn’t give it away when it sends you a text.
You might simply want to hide the alert for one chat. This will differ for each app, but it’s relatively simple in Apple Messages. Toggle the Hide Alerts option by opening the chat, tapping the profile symbol at the top, and then tapping Info.
Turn off message preview
You can follow these steps to turn off the message preview option on your iPhone:
- Open the Settings application on your iPhone.
- Then select Notifications.
- Scroll down and select Messages from the menu.
- In the Messages tab, under Options click on Show Previews.
- Click on Never in the tab.
Turn off Sound for messages
If you also want to turn off the sounds for the messages, you can follow these steps:
- Open the Settings application on your iPhone.
- Then select Notifications.
- Scroll down and select Messages from the menu.
- Click on Sounds if you don’t want anyone to know you received a message.
- Then click on Vibration.
- Choose None in the tab.
- On the Sounds page, select None under Alert Tones once more.
Hide banner preview notification
- Open the Settings application on your iPhone.
- Then select Notifications.
- Scroll down and select Messages from the menu.
- Disable Lock Screen, Notification Center, and Banner alerts.
- Toggling Allow Notifications off is the final option.
- When you do this, your phone will no longer warn you in any way. You’ll need to remember to check your Messages app on a frequent basis to see whether you’ve gotten any new messages.
Hide a conversation from Apple Messages
The ability to hide alerts from a single contact works to some level. However, if someone else unlocks your phone, the text discussion will still be completely visible in-app, especially if you contacted that person lately. The simplest technique to conceal a discussion is to delete it. To delete your chat, either tap and hold a Messages conversation or swipe from right to left. Then confirm your deletion by tapping the red trash button. If you don’t want to erase the chat and want to keep messaging this person, something you can do is delete their contact from your address book. After that, you can go to Message Filtering under Settings in Messages. There you can toggle Filter Unknown Senders. This option can help you block text messages on iPhones.
This feature separates suspected spam into a distinct, filtered folder and disables any notifications from it, much like a spam folder on your email. However, it can help you with another privacy purpose. This is because you’ve removed this individual from your contacts, their messages won’t trigger alerts. Thus, it will only be viewable in a folder where no one would think to look.
Finding a more private iOS messaging app
Apple Messages was created with accessibility and ease in mind, not with privacy in mind. If you want to hide messages on your iPhone, instead of finding workarounds and deactivating functionality, you should consider switching to a new app that prioritizes privacy. End-to-end encryption is available in messaging apps like Signal and Telegram, ensuring that your messages are secure. More crucially they even allow you to password protect the app itself. Thus, ensuring that anyone who knows your phone password cannot read your private messages. Another useful privacy feature is the ability to turn on Auto Deletion for certain chats in some messaging programs. Telegram allows you to set a period of 24 or 7 days, after which any messages older than that are automatically deleted.
If you’re concerned about privacy on another person’s phone, both Telegram and Signal allow you to send messages that auto-delete on the receiver’s end. Telegram even allows you to delete every message you’ve sent to another person from both your phone and theirs. Thus, ensuring that no trace of your communication is left behind.
Conclusion
There are times when you want to hide your chats for different reasons. There are multiple ways to do this on your iPhone. You can simply turn off the notification alert, that way no one would know about your text by seeing the alerts on the lock screen. Moreover, you can even turn off the message preview from your lock screen. Although, after doing these changes you won’t be alerted about new messages. So, you will have to regularly go to the app to check for any new messages. Although, if you don’t want to move around with settings, you can even download a new private app from the App Store for messaging. This way you can hide your messages from others through password or auto-deletion.
If you have any questions, you can ask us in the comments section below.
