How to filter known senders in Messages on iPhone

On a daily basis, we receive numerous messages about many different things including promotional messages, discounted deals from various outlets, transactional messages from banks, spam messages, etc. Since the inbox fills up due to these messages, finding a specific thread becomes hectic. However, you can filter known senders in Messages on iPhone.

The feature helps the user by alleviating the issue of never-ending scrolling through your inbox by sorting messages from people who are on your contacts list and those who are not, or the texts from random numbers that you never replied to. Read more to find out how you can filter known senders in Messages on iPhone.

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Learn how to filter known senders in Messages on iPhone

You can follow our simple guide to filter known senders in Messages on iPhone. But before you start, make sure that your device is functioning on iOS 14 or the newer.

  1. Launch Settings on your iPhone or iPad.
  2. Scroll down and tap Messages.
  3. Next, scroll down until you see Message Filtering > tap the toggle next to Filter Unknown Sender to move it to green. Exit Settings and launch Messages.
    How to filter known senders in Messages on iPhone
  4. If you are viewing the normal list, tap Filters in the top-left corner of the interface.
    How to filter known senders in Messages on iPhone
  5. Under All Messages, you should now see the two filtered options: Known Senders and Unknown Senders. Just tap the option to see its associated messages list.
    How to filter known senders in Messages on iPhone

Do note that you may still find a few random phone numbers while scrolling through the Known Senders inbox. This may happen because you might have once replied to that text at some point or even called back, so the app considers it as Known Senders.

We hope this guide helped you learn how to filter known senders in Messages on iPhone. If you have any questions, let us know in the comments below.

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About the Author

Usman has been playing games for as long as he can remember. He is an editor at iThinkDifferent and writes about games, Apple news, hardware, productivity guides, and more. When not writing for iTD, Usman loves to play competitive Team Fortress 2, spends time honing his football skills, and watches superhero movies.