How to increase the privacy of iMessage previews and alerts on your iPhone and iPad
By default, iMessage and SMS messages will show previews and alerts on the Lock screen and Home screen of your iPhone, and iMessage previews and alerts on your iPad and iPhone. If you'd rather keep your messages -- be they big business dealings or super secret sextings, we don't judge! -- away from prying eyes, and give yourself some privacy, it's easy to do.
How to turn off iMessage and SMS previews on your iPhone and iPad
By default iOS will show a short preview of your iMessage (or SMS) on both the Lock screen and Home screen. If you'd rather have your notification only show the sender's name, however, you can easily adjust the settings of the Messages app to do so.
- Launch the Settings app from your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad Home screen.
- Tap Notifications and then Messages.
- Scroll down to Show Preview.
- Toggle the option to Off if you don't want iMessage or SMS previews. That will make sure only the sender's name will show in the notifications.
How to turn off message alerts on your iPhone and iPad
If you'd like to additional privacy when it comes to iMessage and SMS, or just want to conserve battery life by minimizing the amounts of alerts you get, the Messages app also allows you to customize the kind of alerts you receive and how often for both iPhone and iPad.
- Launch the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
- Tap Notifications and then Messages.
- Under the Alert Style section you can change the type of notification alerts you receive. For maximum privacy you can completely disable alerts by selecting None.
Changes will affect both iMessages and regular SMS messages. Even though you turned off the alert notification, unless you disable sound separately, a tone will still play, however, no alerts will pop up.
Not only will this add more privacy but it'll maximize battery life by not waking up the screen every time you receive an iMessage or SMS.
How-to, jailbreak, and DIY Editor at iMore, owner at The Pod Drop & AnoStyle, Potter pundit, and the ninja in your iOS
There are 6 comments. Add yours.
Great tip, I use it myself. It's worth mentioning that if you choose to do this on your iPhone, Siri can't read the text message when you ask her to do so. Or at least it wasn't working when I tried in originally.
That's right. When message preview is disabled , Siri can not read you your messages.
Siri will read it though with these settings if the phone or iPad is unlocked
It amazes me how so many of my friends don't use this.
There is another issue that needs to be addressed here... Allyson, why are you texting yourself...?
I set mine to 'none' but now I cant get it back to banners, even though I have changed the setting back. Help?