Mac 911

Solutions to your most vexing Mac problems.

- GLENN FLEISHMAN

HOW TO BLOCK ANNOYING TEXTS WITH A FEW TAPS ON YOUR IPHONE

While it's relatively easy to stop spam calls on the iPhone (fave.co/4fU40fJ), Apple hasn't yet provided a consistent way to mark unwanted incoming text messages and block and delete them. Nor does it identify texts for patterns-as the Mail app and iCloud.​com do to mark commercial and fraudulent emails-to see if they look like something that should go right into the bit bucket. Here are a few things you can do to block annoying texts on your iPhone.

Option 1: Delete and Report

In some cases, iOS may display an option that says Report Junk or Delete and Report Junk for SMS messages from unknown senders. This depends on whether your wireless carrier supports the option and other configurations choices you've made for the Phone app and texting. If it's available, you can swipe left in the conversation list on an unwanted message, tap the Trash icon, and tap Delete and Report Junk. In a conversation, a Report Junk option appears below the most recent text: tap it and then tap Delete and Report Junk.

Option 2: Use SMS filters

Apple already filters your Messages into All Messages, Known Senders and Unknown Senders, which helps hide away some of the messages you don't want cluttering up your Messages app. However, if you want to stop those messages even getting into your Unknown Senders folder there are options.

You can install third-party SMS filters, an option Apple started supporting in 2017. Your messages are routed via these third-party filters. You do need to trust those third parties with your personal information, as these filters do see the contents of your SMS messages. It is a privacy risk, but one that the companies involved have detailed policy statements about and bear the liability for if your messages were to be breached.