How to Unsend iMessage on iPhone in iOS 16

Apple’s newest iPhone feature can help avert a very easy texting mistake: You’re quickly sending a text message to your friend Alexandra about a surprise party for your friend Alex. Unfortunately, with Alex on your mind, you accidentally send that iMessage to him instead. There’s nothing you can do — at least not if you do that today. With the release of iOS 16, you can now recall any accidental message or edit what you’ve said, as long as you catch the mistake quickly. Continue reading to learn how to unsend iMessages on iPhone in iOS 16.

Apple’s Messages app gains a handful of new features with iOS 16. Three big ones are the option to edit iMessages, completely unsend iMessages, and mark text messages as unread.

Below we’ll focus on how it works to unsend iMessages on iPhone. We’ve also got a detailed guide on how editing iMessage works:

How To Unsend iMessages on iPhone In iOS 16

1. Running iOS 16 on iPhone, open the Messages app
2. Find the conversation and the specific message you want to unsend
3. Long-press on the message
4. Tap Undo Send
5. Undo Send and the new Edit message option work up to 15 minutes after sending

Apple notes that when you try to unsend iMessages that were sent to someone running iOS 15 or earlier, they may still be able to see them

Will You Be Notified If Someone Unsend iMessage on iPhone?

Something important to keep in mind, if the person isn’t on iOS 16 that you sent, and then unsent an iMessage, Apple gives a notice that they “may still be able to see your message.”

And if the person who received the original message is on iOS 16, they will get an alert in the thread that a message was unsent.

But one interesting aspect is the notification for the iMessage is removed on their device along with the message when you 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 the original message was sent).