The Messages app got some valuable upgrades this year with iOS 16. One interesting feature is the ability to unsend iMessages on iPhone. Follow along with us to get a hands-on look at how the feature works, its limitations, and what the experience is for the person on the other end.
Apple’s Messages app is gaining quite a few new features with iOS 16. Three big ones are the option to edit iMessages, unsend iMessages altogether, and mark text messages as unread.
Below we will focus on how to unsend iMessages on iPhone works. We also have a detailed guide on how iMessage editing works:
Unsend iMessages: iPhone iOS 16 Guide
iOS 16 is currently available as a free or paid beta for developers. Learn more about installing iOS 16 in our complete guide.
- When iOS 16 is running on iPhone, open the Messages app
- Find the specific conversation and message you want to unsend
- long press in the message
- Faucet Undo Send
- Undo Send and the new Edit Message option work for up to 15 minutes after sending
- Apple notes that when you try to unsend iMessages that were sent to someone with iOS 15 or earlier, they may still be able to see them.
Here’s how the iMessage unsend feature looks in iOS 16:
You don’t need to confirm the action, once you unsend iMessages on iPhone, you will see some animation as it pops up and disappears.
Caveats and restrictions
One important thing to keep in mind, if the person you’ve sent isn’t iOS 16 and then doesn’t send an iMessage, Apple gives a notification that “they may still see your message.”
And if the person who received the original message is on iOS 16, they will get an alert in the thread that the message was not sent (as shown below).
But one interesting aspect is removing the notification for iMessage on their device along with the message when unsend.
So they will see that you used the feature, but may not know what it was (as long as they didn’t see a preview of the text when sending the original message).
Read more about iOS 16:
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