Having an inbox filled with spam messages can be pretty annoying. So is getting interrupted by its arrival when users are instead anticipating some other great news or are busy. But, there is a way to get rid of spam messages on an iPhone through the ‘Filter Unknown Messages’ feature. Here’s how –
- Go to Settings and scroll down and down to reach Messages.
- After that, open Messages, scroll down to ‘Filter Unknown Messages,’ and turn it on. Note: Users will have to scroll almost three pages to reach this feature.
The magic begins once the ‘Filter Unknown Messages’ feature is on. Hence, if users now go into their Messages app, they’ll see different tabs at the top of the screen. For instance, on the left, the ‘Contacts & SMS’ tab will consist of messages from known contacts in users’ address books. And, on the right, a new ‘Unknown Senders’ tab will appear. Therefore, when users receive a message from someone not present in their address book, they won’t get a notification. And the message will drop into the ‘Unknown Senders’ tab instead.
More details about the feature
However, users must add all their legitimate senders to their address book once the ‘Filter Unknown Messages’ feature is on. The reason is that any message from a number not in the users’ contact list will go to the ‘Unknown Senders’ tab without a notification. So, users need to add the contact of someone they are expecting a text from into their address book. Or else they’d have to scan the Unknown Senders list to search that message.
Furthermore, workers from Door Dash, Uber Eats, and InstaCart ofter uses rotating custom text message numbers to reach customers. So, users need to check the Unknown Senders list during the delivery window if they’re expecting a delivery from one of these services.
Bottom line
New iPhone owners with a blank address book will receive messages from numbers not yet in their Contacts app. Hence, the feature might be off by default for this exact reason. In any case, the ‘Filter Unknown Messages’ is an outstanding feature to empty an inbox of spam messages. So, it’s worth the effort it takes to add the numbers users want to receive texts from to their Contacts app.
