How to hide text messages on the iPhone (turn off SMS Preview)

Posted on October 27, 2008 at 5:23 am

The Apple iPhone has one annoying feature called SMS Text Preview that shows the name of the text sender along with a preview of the text message on the main screen whenever a new text message comes in!

It’s a very convenient feature since you can quickly read incoming text messages, but it’s also a privacy concern. Personally, I tend to leave my iPhone laying around the house or in some place where someone else can come and pick it up and play around with it.

It would be very tempting for someone to read my text messages if it pops up right in their faces! If it’s a message I would want rather have remained private, it would be very embarrassing. There are two ways to disable SMS Preview.

Firstly, you can turn off SMS Text Preview on the iPhone and hide your text messages by setting a passcode lock. The only issue with this method is that it requires you to enter a passcode every time you want to use the phone. However, you can also set how long the phone has to be idle before having to type in the passcode.

So you can set it to 1 hour, for example, so that if you receive a text message within an hour of using your phone, you won’t have to put in a code. The other way is to download a third-party iPhone app that hides text messages. Read below to find out.

How to disable SMS Text Preview

Step 1: Go to Settings and then General. Tap Passcode Lock.

Step 2: If you have not already set a passcode on your iPhone, you’ll be asked to do so now.

Step 3: After confirming your passcode, you’ll now be able to see the options, which includes “Show SMS Preview”. Slide it to off and change the Require Passcode time to something higher.

The second method, which is better since it does not require you to keep having to enter a stupid passcode, is to download and install the Privacy iPhone app. It basically gives you full control over all SMS privacy settings on the iPhone.

You can prevent the phone from giving any kind of notification when a new SMS text message arrives, or you can have it vibrate, but not show the message, etc, etc. This is what Apple should have included by default in the iPhone, but for some reason has not!

This app is not free, but it might be worth it for those who really have to ensure privacy of their SMS text messages on the iPhone! If you’ve found some other way to turn off SMS Preview without a third-party app, post in the comments!

Also, check out my previous posts about the iPhone like how to setup Gmail and Hotmail on the iPhone and how to migrate from the iPhone to the iPhone 3G. Enjoy!

» Filed Under Computer Tips

Comments

6 Responses to “How to hide text messages on the iPhone (turn off SMS Preview)”

chris said on : February 11th, 2009 at 11:07 pm

The passcode off didn’t hide the incoming text at all. when in lock mode it would still pop up but instead of a message it would say “text.” but then when i typed in my passcode it would let me enter the phone but the text message would be the first thing exposed. If I wasn’t in lock mode and I was browsing the phone the text would interupt and pop up as if the “Show SMS Preview” was On and the text message was right there for all to see.

In other words, creating a passcode password, turning passcode on and turning Show SMS Preview off didn’t really change a thing about how I’m receiving a text message. I double and triple checked all my settings and ran several tests. Thoughts?

La'Toya said on : February 18th, 2009 at 1:37 pm

I was trying to hid the incoming messages on my phone and after I did the passcode lock and follow all of the instructions above, my messages were still exposed to everyone! I am too like Chris, I double and triple checked and the same results. Any comments? Please advise.

T. said on : March 26th, 2009 at 11:27 am

It seems like the text preview hide only applies to when the phone is locked, which is probably why the sms preview hide option is located under passcode lock. It still shows the preview when your phone is in use and not locked.

I was wondering why sms lock option was hidden under passcode lock. That must be why.

Dan said on : October 18th, 2009 at 4:58 am

I don’t even have the option to hide SMS messaging..even after setting the passcode lock. And that privacy doesn’t exist. For such an unbelievable phone you’d think maybe someone in the design team would say,”hey..since every other model phone for the past decade has had an option to lock messages..maybe we should add that..nahhhhh…”

Big John said on : October 31st, 2009 at 11:24 am

Let me get this straight. You want to hide the SMS preview because it’s a privacy concern, but see a passcode as ’stupid’? So instead of glancing at the phone, I can pick your phone up and just start copying down numbers and information without a password?

Brilliant.

Joe M said on : November 6th, 2009 at 11:04 pm

SMS privacy a BIG issue. what good does the iphone do if all the messages are right in front of the screen for all to see? never had this problem with a microsoft based smart phone. not pleased at all with the iphone. my old phone sms would go straight to a mailbox.