15 iMessage Tips and Tricks All iPhone Users Need to Know

Ever wondered why some message bubbles in the Messages app are blue while others are green?

By default, the Messages app supports sending of SMS text messages, provided that your iPhone is duly equipped with a SIM card tied to a text messaging plan from your carrier. But you can activate iMessage on your iPhone to be able to use the Messages app for sending texts, photos, and videos over Wi-Fi or cellular data to iOS devices and Macs that also have iMessage.

To activate iMessage, open the Settings app, tap Messages, turn on iMessage, and wait for its activation to complete.

You can then distinguish between iMessages and SMS messages in the Messages app thus: iMessages appear in blue text bubbles while SMS messages appear in green text bubbles.

At times when you’re chatting with someone over iMessage, a disruption to your or your interlocutor’s Wi-Fi or cellular network might stop a message from being sent. But if the person you’re chatting with is on iMessage via a phone number, the message may be automatically sent as SMS instead. This is all well and good, except that SMS might incur carrier charges.

With this in mind, you might want to prevent your iPhone from automatically rerouting unsuccessfully sent iMessages to SMS. To do that, you want to make sure that the relevant feature is disabled by opening the Settings app, tapping Messages, and turning off Send as SMS.

If for some reason an iMessage hangs and fails to be delivered, you can arrange for it to be sent as a text message as long as the person you’re chatting with is on iMessage via a phone number.

To do this, just tap and hold on the message and tap Send as Text Message in the pop-up menu. The iMessage will then be sent as text message: Notice that the blue text bubble turns green in the process. Of course, be mindful that SMS might incur carrier charges.

To copy a message, just tap and hold on the text bubble and tap Copy in the pop-up menu. You can then paste it in a new message or in another app.

To forward a message, you need not copy and paste it. Just tap and hold on the text bubble, tap More in the pop-up menu, tap the arrow icon, enter a recipient, and tap the send button.

To delete messages, tap and hold on a text bubble, tap More in the pop-up menu, tap the circle opposite each message you want to delete to mark it with a check, and tap the trash bin icon.

To delete a conversation, swipe left on the conversation in the messages list, and tap Delete. To delete multiple conversations at once, tap Edit at the top of the messages list, tap the circle opposite each conversation you want to delete to mark it with a check, and tap Delete. The conversations will then be removed from the messages list.

To delete all messages in a conversation without removing it from the messages list, tap and hold on a text bubble, tap More in the pop-up menu, tap Delete All, and tap Delete Conversation.

Images or attachments shared in a conversation can be found in one place: Tap the info icon (the circled “i”) at the top of a conversation and scroll down to find the separate tabs for Images and Attachments.

To delete a single image or attachment, tap and hold on it, tap Delete, and tap Delete Attachment.

To delete multiple images or attachments at once, tap and hold on one, tap More, tap all of the images or attachments you want to delete, tap the trash bin icon, and tap “Delete [number] Attachments.”

You may not know it, but a considerable amount of storage space on your iPhone may be attributed to the Messages app, especially if you send a lot of iMessages with photos, videos, and attachments. This can be a problem particularly if your iPhone only has a paltry 16GB allowance. Fortunately, if you’re not one to hold on to messages for reasons sentimental or otherwise, you can set your device to automatically delete old messages.

To do this, open the Settings app, tap Messages, tap Keep Messages (under the heading Message History), tap 30 days to automatically delete messages older than 30 days or 1 Year to automatically delete messages older than one year, and tap Delete in the warning pop-up menu. (If you don’t want to automatically delete messages at all, tap Forever.)

Looking for a particular text message or conversation with a particular contact? You can search messages across all conversations. In the Messages app, go to the messages list, tap the status bar to reveal the search bar, type a search keyword or the name of a contact, and tap the relevant search result.

You can also search messages anywhere you are on your iPhone via Spotlight.

First, you need to include Messages in Spotlight’s search index. Open the Settings app, tap General, tap Spotlight Search, and turn on Messages under the heading Search Results.

Thereafter, you can simply swipe from the top of your iPhone screen, enter a search keyword or the name of a contact in the Spotlight search bar, and tap the relevant search result under Messages. You can also tap Search in App to open the Messages app with the search already in place.

Every now and then, messages will be displayed with the respective dates and times on which they were sent. But if you want to see the sending dates and times for messages that are not shown as such, there’s a really simple way to reveal their hidden timestamps. Just swipe left anywhere in the conversation and the timestamp for each message will be pulled into view.

It’s easy to see the phone number or email address that sent a message if the sender is not in your contacts. But if he or she is already in your contacts, you can check which saved phone number or email address he or she is using.

In the conversation with the person in question, tap the info icon, tap the contact name, and look for the phone number or email address with the Recent badge — that’s the phone number or email address the person is using in the chat.

If you don’t mind letting people know when you have read their messages, or if you’re not one to “seen-zone” people, you might want to enable read receipts.

To do so, open the Settings app, tap Messages, and turn on Send Read Receipts. Thereafter, when you’ve read an iMessage, on the sender’s end, the Delivered label below the message will be replaced by a read receipt, which says Read followed by the time you read the message

If you don’t want to send read receipts for all conversations, just turn off Read Receipts in the Messages section in Settings.

If you’ve enabled read receipts for all conversations, you can disable read receipts for specific conversations. Likewise, if you’ve disabled read receipts for all conversations, you can enable read receipts for specific conversations. Just tap the info icon in a conversation and toggle the switch for Send Read Receipts.

As it turns out, we’re only just getting started. Tune in to AppAdvice for more iMessage tips and tricks to help you get the most out of Apple’s Messages app on your iPhone.