How to Mark Texts and iMessages as Unread on Your iPhone, iPad or Mac

Starting with iOS 8, we can mark all or individual unread conversations as read in the Apple Messages app. Eight years later, Apple is finally allowing us to mark individual iMessage text messages and chats as unread.

Try to remember how many times you opened a new message without replying right away because you were unprepared or distracted. If you don’t have time to reply when you first read it, chances are you’ll forget about it completely. Marking messages as unread is an effective way to combat this problem.

It’s pretty crazy that Apple just made a feature to mark messages as unread, given that it’s been eight years since we could mark messages as read, 11 years since iMessage, 13 years since MMS, and 15 years since the introduction of the iPhone. launched with SMS support.

Better late than never.

You can mark messages as unread since iOS 16, and this also works on iPadOS 16 and macOS 13 Ventura. If you have iCloud for Messages turned on, anything you mark as unread on one device will appear as unread on your other iCloud connected devices.

1. Mark messages as unread on iPhone and iPad

In iOS 16 or iPadOS 16, you can easily mark any read message or conversation as unread, and there are several ways to do this. From your conversation list:

• Swipe right on the chat you want to mark as unread. You can swipe part of it and click the Mark Unread button, or swipe it off the screen to mark it automatically.
• Tap and hold on a chat and select “Mark as unread”from the quick actions.
• Tap Edit or the ellipsis (•••) at the top, choose Select Messages, check one or more chats, and tap Unread at the bottom.

Previously, Apple used a swipe to the right gesture to pin conversations. To pin a conversation now, press and hold the chat and select Pin or drag the discussion to the top of the list.

To mark a message as unread, swipe right (left), press and hold (center), or select messages (right).

To isolate the conversation list from unread messages only, you need to enable message filtering. Go to Settings -> Messages and you should see a “Filter Unknown Senders”toggle under Message Filtering. If you have any apps installed that can filter SMS, tap “Unknown & Spam”to find “Filter Unknown Senders”. Make sure the toggle is on and the Edit button in the conversation list will now be the Filters menu. Tap it and choose “Unread Messages”to see only those.

With filters enabled, click Filters (on the left) and select Unread Messages (on the right).

To mark an unread conversation as read in your conversation list:

• Swipe right on the chat you want to mark as read. You can swipe part of it and click the “Mark as read”button, or swipe it off the screen to mark it automatically.
• Tap and hold on a chat and select “Mark as read”from the quick actions. (You could already do this before iOS 16.)
• Click Edit or the ellipsis (•••) at the top, choose Select Messages, and then either click Read All at the bottom, or mark one or more chats and click Read instead. (You could already do this before iOS 16.)

2. Mark messages as unread on Mac

As of iOS 16 and iPadOS 16, the Messages app for macOS 13 Ventura lets you mark messages as unread. Simply right-click (or Control-click) on a read chat in your conversation list and click Mark Unread.

To mark unread messages as read, you do the same: right-click (or Control-click) on an unread chat in your conversation list and click Mark as Read.

Bonus Tip: Ask Siri to Read Your Unread Messages

Life can be busy, and if you never want to forget an important text again, you can mark your messages as unread for the day and ask Siri to read them all at once for you. Just say “Hey Siri, read my unread messages”and listen to each unread message and who it came from. After reading each one, Siri will ask if you’d like to reply, and you can dictate and send your answer.