iPhone and iOS 16 guide

The Messages app got some valuable upgrades this year with iOS 16. One interesting feature is the ability to unsend iMessages on iPhone. Follow along with us to get a hands-on look at how the feature works, its limitations, and what the experience is for the person on the other end.

Brought to you by Mosyle, Apple’s only unified platform. Mosyle completely integrates 5 different apps on one Apple-only platform. Businesses can automatically deploy, manage, and protect all of their Apple devices. Request a free account to learn how to put your Apple fleet on autopilot at a price that’s hard to believe.

Apple’s Messages app is gaining quite a few new features with iOS 16. Three big features are the option to edit iMessages, unsend iMessages altogether, and mark text messages as unread.

Below we will focus on how to unsend iMessages on iPhone works. We also have a detailed guide on how iMessage editing works:

Unsend iMessages: iPhone iOS 16 Guide

1. When iOS 16 is running on iPhone, open the Messages app
2. Find the specific conversation and message you want to unsend
3. long press in the message
4. Faucet Undo Send
5. Undo Send works up to 2 minutes after sending
   • Apple notes that when you try to unsend iMessages that were sent to someone with iOS 15 or earlier, they may still be able to see them.

Here’s how the iMessage unsend feature looks in iOS 16:

You don’t need to confirm the action, once you unsend iMessages on iPhone, you will see some animation as it pops up and disappears.

Caveats and restrictions

In addition to the two-minute unsend limit, it’s important to keep in mind that if the person you’re sending doesn’t have iOS 16 and then doesn’t send an iMessage to them, Apple sends a notification that “they may still see a message.”

And if the person who received the original message is on iOS 16, they will get an alert in the thread that the message was not sent (as shown below).

But one interesting aspect is removing the notification for iMessage on their device along with the message when unsend.

So they will see that you used the feature, but may not know what it was (as long as they didn’t see a preview of the text when sending the original message).

This article is brought to you by Mosyle, Apple’s only unified platform. Mosyle integrates 5 completely different apps on one Apple-only platform, allowing businesses to automatically deploy, manage, and protect all of their Apple devices. Request a free account today and find out how you can put your Apple fleet on autopilot for a price that’s hard to believe.

Read more about iOS 16:

Check out 9to5Mac on YouTube for more Apple news: