How to cancel a message on iphone

You can now edit and delete iMessages on iOS16.

Sofia Pitt

Apple's latest iPhone software update, iOS 16, was released Monday. It has a feature that could save you from your worst autocorrect failures. You can now edit and delete iMessages you've already sent.

You'll have only two minutes to unsend an iMessage and 15 minutes to edit an iMessage. This perk doesn't work with SMS text messages, the type that show up as green bubbles instead of blue ones. And it only works if the other person you're texting also has iOS 16 installed.

IOS 16 is available for everyone with an iPhone released in 2017 or later.

Here's how to edit and delete messages on iOS 16.

To edit an iMessage on iOS 16

iMessage in edit mode on iOS16.

Sofia Pitt

• Open iMessage.
• Press and hold the message you want to edit.
• A Quick Actions menu will appear.
• Tap Edit.
• Choose Edit to change the message.
• Once you're done editing, hit the blue check mark.
• You can edit a single message up to five times.
• You'll have 15 minutes from the time you sent it to change your message.

Edited text on iMessage using iOS16.

Sofia Pitt

To unsend an iMessage on iOS 16

Editing and deleting iMessages on iOS16 only works if both phones are running on iOS16.

Sofia Pitt

• Open iMessage.
• Press and hold the message you want to unsend.
• A Quick Actions menu will appear.
• Tap Undo Send.
• Undo Send works up to two minutes after sending.
• When you try to unsend iMessages that were sent to someone running iOS 15 or earlier software, they may still be able to see them.
• If the person you are texting has iOS 16, a message will appear saying you unsent a text message. The person you're texting won't know what that message was, as long as they didn't see a preview of that text when the original iMessage was sent.

That's it! Again, it only works if you and the person you're texting have the update installed. You can check by going to Settings > General > About. If you don't see iOS 16 listed, then go to Settings > General > Software Update on your iPhone.

This tutorial shows you how to stop a sent iMessage before it’s delivered to the person or group. Our goal is to cancel or interrupt the outgoing message from reaching Apple servers. Because once it’s sent, there is no way to unsend it unless you’re on iOS 16.

How to cancel an iMessage once it starts sending

I’ve had plenty of situations where an iMessage I intended for a specific person ended up going to someone else because I wasn’t paying enough attention. Once this happens, you become motivated to learn how to stop an iMessage dead in its tracks before it gets to the wrong person ever again in the future.

The first thing to realize is when you send a message to a person using iMessage; there’s no getting it back once it hits Apple’s servers (as long as you aren’t on iOS 16). This is the reason you have to intercept the message before Apple’s servers receive it. This also means you have to act fast before the blue progress bar reaches the right side of the screen after sending the message.

The trick here is to kill the Internet connection as quickly as possible before the message is sent successfully. And because iPhones have both Wi-Fi and cellular data capabilities available for getting data in and out, your best bet is to get Airplane Mode enabled as quickly as possible after sending the message.

The only downside to this method is you’re taking a chance at it because it can require more time to perform these steps than it may take for the iMessage to send with today’s high-speed Internet connections.

On iPhone and iPad

Here’s how to stop an iMessage from being sent after you have hit the send button:

1) While the iMessage is still sending, immediately open Control Center. To do this on iPhone with Face ID, swipe down from the top right corner of the screen. On iPhone with a Home button, swipe up from the bottom of the screen.

2) Quickly tap the Airplane icon.

3) Dismiss the message telling you how Airplane Mode needs to be turned off to send messages.

4) A red “Not Delivered” indicator should appear.

5) Delete the message from the conversation by holding the text bubble and choosing More > trash icon > Delete Message.

6) Turn off Airplane mode to re-enable Wi-Fi and cellular data.

If you see the red “Not Delivered” indicator, then you’ve just saved yourself a whole lot of embarrassment because this means your Internet connection failed when you toggled Airplane mode and that your iMessage was unable to reach Apple’s servers. Even better is that your iOS device will not try to resend the message automatically, but you would have to do so manually, so just delete the message instead, and you’re golden.

In case you don’t see the “Not Delivered” indicator, that means the message has been sent.

Tip for Jailbroken iOS device

Jailbroken devices have another advantage: Activator. With Activator installed from Cydia, you can assign any gesture to enable Airplane Mode. That’s what we did for this tutorial since we’ve only seldom been able to accomplish this task with the former method of trying to beat the clock to open the Control Center.

Activator gestures can be far more time-efficient than stock iOS gestures. So for this instance, we opted to assign a three-finger tap gesture to toggle Airplane Mode on or off.

After that, while an iMessage is sending, invoke your Activator gesture to enable Airplane mode before the blue progress bar reaches the right side of the screen. After that, you will see a red “Not Delivered” indicator below the message. Now, delete it, and you have successfully stopped the message midway.

Another tweak that can help ensure you don’t miss the mark is SendDelay. It will give you more time before the progress bar hits the right side of your screen. The delay will provide you with enough time to react, and hence you’ll have better luck at turning on Airplane Mode in a timely fashion.

Has this method worked for you if you’ve ever been in a similar situation? Share in the comments below.

iMessage stopped midway

This is how you can successfully intercept an iMessage before it reaches Apple’s servers and remove it from your conversation. After this, you can rest assured that the person you accidentally fired the message off to won’t receive it.

Third-party apps like WhatsApp and Telegram already have the option to unsend a message within a time frame. Thankfully, Apple has also introduced this handy feature into Messages in iOS 16.

Related iMessage tutorials:

• How to find out if someone blocked you on iPhone
• How to stop iMessage photos from showing in Photos app
• Steps to send PDF, ZIP, and other files on iMessage
• How to send pictures in full quality on iMessage, WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal

How do you cancel a sent message on iPhone?

How do you cancel a text message?

Can you delete a text message before someone reads it iPhone?

Can you delete an iMessage before it's delivered?