The median soul experience an awful fate of spam and cozenage by phone , text edition , and e-mail . Apple and ISPs put up anti - spam tools for electronic mail ( with varying degrees of effectiveness ) , and cell carriers and third parties have worked to ply ways to key orblock unwanted or illegal calls on your phone . Texts , however , are still somewhat open to ill-treatment . One look across set of options on your iPhone , iPad , or Mac follow with telling and filter setting that can at least let you obviate picture incoming garbage .

iOS 16 : Enable substance Filtering

On an iPhone , go toSettings > message , scroll down toMessage Filteringand enableFilter unnamed Senders . This puts hoi polloi who send you iMessages or text messages and do n’t match an electronic mail address or earphone act in your contacts number into a peculiar Messages leaning . You ca n’t enable this feature film on an iPad or Mac , but you could make function of it there .

iOS 16 Filter Unknown Senders

How to adjust settings to handle unknown or spam messages

iOS 16: the message lists with filtering on

Foundry

iOS 16 Messages filtered view

When you enable Filter unsung Senders , the messages leaning in Messages has a different look . If you launch Messages and you see your messages , tap the Filters tie-in at the upper left . You ’ll now see sections where message are filtered . For most people , the sections are All Messages , Known Senders , Unknown Senders , and Unread Messages . Messages sent from anyone not in your contacts is place in Unknown Senders .

macOS Ventura: Known Senders

In macOS , chooseView > Known Sendersin Messages , and “ Known Senders ” appear as a label at the top of your conversations list . you may utilize keystrokes to move among purview , like Control - Command-1 for All Messages and Control - Command-2 for Known Senders .

iOS 16: Messages Notifications

With these mount and filters in piazza , you ’ll still get notifications about unknown senders – you just wo n’t see them in your independent Messages view . If you want , you’re able to stamp down those incoming messages further on an iPhone only , which ripples through to notifications on an iPad or macOS , even though the setting is present there . Go toSettings > Notifications > message > Customize Notificationsand disableUnknown Senders .

iOS 16 third-party solutions

A further pick is to instal a third - party app that can enable filters , whichonlyapply to textual matter and multimedia messages ( SMS and MMS ) ; iMessages are always encrypted end - to - close between receiver . As of iOS 16 / iPadOS 16 , Apple lets companies chase after messages into as many as 13 category , with furtherance , dealings , and detritus as the master bearing . For instance , an incoming second - gene text code might get permeate into Transactions > Other . While we have no specific testimonial , look on the App Store for “ text filter ” had several extremely positively reviewed apps at the top of the list .

There ’s a privacy risk with third - party text - message analysis , however , as unlike most everything else Apple lets third parties do with your data : the contents of your SMS / MMS subject matter are send to the other caller to process . Appleexplains the seclusion issue in a note . This demand hope the app maker ’s data handling and security with what could be very individual messages or protection codes .

This Mac 911 clause is in answer to a question submitted by Macworld reader Mark .

iOS 16 Messages filters

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macOS Ventura Known Senders

iOS 16 Messages Notifications

third party Messages filter