The best and easiest thing you can do to secure your messages from being previewed by anyone else is to hide alerts of those texts on your iPhone.
The messages that pop up on your screen even when your iPhone is locked can be previewed by anyone if they notice. Many times, you do not want your private or sensitive text messages to be read by someone else. To not get your privacy violated, you should hide alerts to those personal text messages now! If hiding alerts is a bit too much for you, you can also hide only the text content from your iPhone lock screen.
Why should you hide texts on iPhone?
- Texting privacy
- Keep maintaining personal stuffs
- If you don’t want to ruin any surprise program
- Hiding sensitive text messages
- Stay away from criminals
How to Hide Alerts to Text Messages on iPhone?
Imagine you are away from your phone and suddenly it pops up with a text notification that is very private for you. What if someone else reads that text from the lock screen and violates your privacy? You surely never want that! In this case, you can get help by hiding text alerts from your iPhone lock screen very easily.
In order to hide pop up text alerts on your iPhone lock screen, follow these steps:
- Open the Settings app.
- Tap Notifications.
- Scroll down and open Messages.
- Under the Alerts category, turn off the Lock Screen option.
How to hide text previews on iPhone?
We acknowledge that hiding alerts can be very risky for you sometimes as you may miss many important messages. Regarding this you can hide only the content of your text messages, having the alerts still appearing on your locked screen.
Here is how you should hide text content or previews on iPhone:
- Open the Settings app.
- Tap Notifications.
- Scroll down and open Messages.
- Under the Options category, open Show Previews.
- Choose the option to Never.
How to stop someone from viewing texts when they are using your iPhone?
Now you know how to hide your texts from the lock screen, but what if someone else is using your iPhone? If your iPhone is in use, text notifications will arrive if the notifications are turned ON! So how are you going to stop someone from viewing texts when they are using your phone? Well if you set a screen time limit for apps, you can also hide texts even when your iPhone is in use.
Limit Screen Time for Apps on iPhone
Limiting screen time is one of the best and most flexible features of an iPhone that lets you set a timer on different applications. Using this feature you can hide and lock text messages on your iPhone from wicked eyes. So before lending your phone to someone, you should use this cool feature, and here are the steps to do it:
- Go to the Settings app.
- Tap and open Screen Time.
- Tap to Turn On Screen Time and click Continue.
- Click This is My iPhone.
- Tap Use Screen Time Passcode.
- Set and reset Screen Time Passcode.
- Choose the App Limits option.
- Then choose the Add Limit option. There you can choose applications that you want to set a timer on. All social media apps are under the Social Networking option. Choose any app.
- Set the Time to 1 min and tap Customize Days according to your need.
- Toggle on the Block at End of Limit option.
- Now go to the app you chose and wait about 1 minutes there. An alert will show up on your screen saying that you have reached your time limit on the app. You can ask for more time but for that you have to enter your Screen Time Passcode.
There you go! Next time you use the app, you need to enter the screen time passcode as it works as an app lock too. It is safer even when your iPhone is in someone else’s hand. You can stop using this feature anytime and very easily as well. For that: go to the Settings app >> tap Screen Time >> tap App Limits >> swipe left on your chosen app to see the Delete option >> tap Delete.
Use Third-party Apps to Hide Text Messages on iPhone
The last option you can avail to effectively hide your text messages on iPhone is using a third-party application! You can find tons of third-party apps on the web and get really confused! So here I have short-listed some of the best apps ever, designed for your iPhone.
CoverMe Private Text & Call
CoverMe is one of the best-rated iOS applications for the iPhone to best hide and protects your private messages and calls. It is a secure app that comes with a Personal Vault. There you can safely lock your photos, videos, documents, notes, or texts. CoverMe also offers you multiple exciting features like Disappearing Messages (none can snoop your messages) or Private Phone Number (disposable numbers while talking to strangers can be a great help to keep privacy). Including so many best features, CoverMe lets you do in-app purchases with a particular amount of credits.
iDiscrete
Discrete is considered one of the most powerful privacy protection applications designed for iPhones. It provides its users with secure storage where they can save and protect any content. One exciting and unique feature of iDiscrete is – it can become a fake browser and load fake pages if the iPhone is in someone else’s hand. Well of course it is when they do not put correct passwords where needed!
Vault – Hide Photos & Videos
To keep your data safe, Vault is a small and most accurate app out there in the Apple App Store. It hides your privacy with a number of cool features. You can get all hidden information (audio, video, texts, or contacts) backed up on Vaults cloud. You can lock private apps in Vault if you become a premium member. Vault is very easy to use but one drawback of it is – handling large amounts of data.
Private Message Box
Private Message Box is one of the best iOS apps for hiding your secret conversation. It lets you hide all of your chats or messages under a pin pad. Moreover, it keeps all of your data secure. You can use a real-time messaging experience with 300+ emoji features, image or location sharing, and many more on Private Message Box. It is very user-friendly as well. For all these, you just have to do in-app purchases from your App Store.
Call Bliss – Silence unwanted calls & texts
Call Bliss makes muting unwanted calls very easy and lets you never miss your important calls. It only silences the blacklisted contacts. With a single tap, you can remove or allow callers using Call Bliss. You can put unwanted contacts in the “Exclude List” using one of its special modes.
Wickr Me – Private Messenger
Wickr Me is an end-to-end encrypted application that lets you connect with your friends in groups or one on one! It is a highly secured application and simple to use. On Wickr Me, you can share images, videos or audios, text contents, or anything without letting your metadata be saved by it. But here you can only create up to 10 groups in order to smooth team collaboration.
Summary
To secure data privacy, hiding text messages on your iPhone is very essential. As nobody likes their privacy being violated by any means and when it comes to messages they share via iPhones, taking extra layers of protection is a must. Therefore in this article, I have shown you exactly how you can do it. I have explained five easy techniques to easily hide your texts on iPhone and I would suggest you try the first four techniques before trying to use any third-party app which is my last option!
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