iMessage lets you send text, pictures, videos, sound, location, and more—right from your iPhone and iPad!
iMessage is Apple's built-in instant messaging (IM) service. It lets you send text, picture, video, sound, and location quickly and easily to anyone else using iMessage on iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple Watch. On iPhone, it lives alongside SMS and MMS, so you can keep in touch with non-Apple friends from the same app. Thanks to Continuity, you can even get those "green bubbles" on iPad and Mac as well! It makes for an incredibly powerful, unified experience. Here's how to use it.
How to set up and activate iMessage for iPhone and iPad
Before you can start using messages, and sending texts, photos, videos, voice memos, locations, and contact cards, however, you need to set it up. If you enabled iCloud on your iPhone or iPad, there's a chance iMessage was enabled as well. If not, you can turn it on quickly and customize it just the way you like it.
How to activate iMessage for iPhone or iPad
How to add multiple email address to iMessage on iPhone and iPad
How to turn read receipts on or off in iMessage for iPhone or iPad
How to turn message previews on or off in iMessage for iPhone and iPad
How to set up and use SMS/MMS relay to send and receive texts on your iPad
How to send iMessages on IPhone or iPad
With the Messages app, you can send all kinds of things to all kinds of people. You can send iMessages over Wi-Fi or cellular data to anyone and everyone using an iPhone, iPad, Mac, iPod touch, or Apple Watch. That includes text, pictures, audio, video, location, and more. You can also send standard carrier SMS/MMS text and picture messages to anyone on any phone. Here's how!
How to tell if you're sending an iMessage or an SMS/MMS
How to send a text message via iMessage on iPhone or iPad
How to send an instant photo or video using iMessage on iPhone or iPad
How to send an existing photo or video using iMessage on iPhone or iPad
How to send your current location using iMessage for iPhone and iPad
How to share your location for a period of time using iMessage for iPhone and iPad
How to share location, contacts, and more with iMessage on iPhone or iPad
iMessage lets you send more than just text, images, and video. You can also send contact cards, voice memos, map locations, and more. You do have to go to other apps to fetch the information you want to send, but once you're there, the Share Sheet makes it easy to do.
How to share a contact card via Messages using the Contacts app on iPhone and iPad
How to send Map locations and directions via iMessage on iPhone and iPad
How to send a voice memo through iMessage on iPhone and iPad
How to quickly send and reply with iMessage for iPhone or iPad
Once upon a time you had to slowly and methodically tap your way through apps and between them just to send and respond to messages. Thanks to the Messages app and Notification Center, though, you can rapidly respond from any app, and immediately send soundbites, selfies, location, and more right over iMessage.
How to quickly reply to a message from notification center on your iPhone or iPad
How to quickly reply to a message from the lock screen of your iPhone or iPad
How to quickly send audio soundbites on your iPhone and iPad
How to quickly send selfies faster on your iPhone and iPad
How to use iMessage groups on iPhone and iPad
You don't have to send iMessages to just one person. Thanks to groups, you can share text, photos, videos, soundbites, location — almost anything you like — with two people, three people, and more. You can even name a conversation thread to make it easier to find and keep track of, or mute it for when it's getting too noisy to follow.
How to start a group message on iPhone or iPad
How to rename a group message
How to mute or leave a group message
How to copy and forward iMessages on iPhone and iPad
We've all been there. You get an iMessage—or SMS/MMS—from one person that you really want to, or absolutely have to, send it on to someone else. Luckily, the Messages app gives you two ways to do just that. You can either forward the message to one or multiple contacts, or copy the contents and paste into an entirely new message. Copying is also a great way to get a message into another app, like Mail, Notes, or Safari.
How to copy a message on iPhone and iPad
How to forward a message on iPhone and iPad
How to delete iMessages on iPhone and iPad
You can't delete iMessages or SMS/MMS on someone else's iPhone or iPad — so always be careful what you send — but you can delete any record of them from your iPhone or iPad. So, whether you don't want to be reminded of an embarrassing or hurtful text, or you want to get rid of storage-consuming pictures and videos, the Messages app lets you wipe them out or set them to expire automatically.
How to delete messages on iPhone and iPad
How to delete multiple images at once on iPhone or iPad
How to set messages to delete after a period of time on iPhone and iPad
How to change expiration settings for audio and video messages on iPhone and iPad
How to mute, block, and report spam on iMessage for iPhone and iPad
Just because anyone can send you an iMessage on your iPhone or iPad doesn't mean you have to let them. If you're getting messaged too often, if you keep getting messages meant for someone else, of if — ugh! — you're getting spam, you can absolutely take action again it. Mute, block, and reporting are all here for you.
How to mute conversations on iPhone and iPad
How to block someone via iMessage on the iPhone or iPad
How to report iMessage spam to Apple
How to disable and deactivate iMessage on iPhone or iPad
The Messages app lets your iPhone and iPad owning friends, family, and colleagues send you iMessages instead of SMS or MMS, thus avoiding carrier fees. Apple does this by detecting that you're both using iOS and then sending an iMessage instead of an SMS or MMS. If you stop using your iPhone, though, and switch to Android, Apple has to stop sending iMessages instead of SMS. The best way to make sure Apple knows you've switched, and to make sure you don't miss any messages from those still using iOS, is to turn off iMessage before you go.
How to deactivate iMessage before switching from iPhone to Android
How to manually deactivate iMessage from Apple's servers
How to use iMessage with Siri
Whether you're driving or your iPhone or iPad is simply across the room, you can combine iMessage with Apple's virtual assistant, Siri to send texts and even have incoming texts read to you, all with the power of your voice.
Note: Most modern iPhones and iPads can be voice-activated when plugged in. 2015 iPhones and later, and 2016 iPads and later, can also be voice-activated when not plugged in. Simply say "Hey Siri" instead of holding down the home button. All subsequent steps remain the same.
How to send messages via iMessage using Siri for iPhone or iPad
How to check for new messages with Siri for iPhone or iPad
Secret iMessage shortcuts: Twelve gestures to speed up your chat!
Messages is the most popular app on iPhone because it's what keeps you in touch with everyone else who has an iPhone. And iPad, and Mac, and any other kind of phone. Thanks to all the gestures and shortcuts Apple's built into Messages, it also keeps you in that contact quicker than ever. Not all of them are obvious, but all of them are useful — once you figure them out!
Secret iMessage shortcuts: Twelve gestures to speed up your chat!
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