Read, send, manage text messages

When you receive a text message notification with the Messaging app, you'll see in the status bar.

TipTo protect your privacy, you can hide sensitive content for lock screen notifications.

All options or references were filtered out.

Read and reply to a message

  1. Swipe the status bar down and touch .

  2. Do any of the following:

    • To respond to the message, enter your response in the text box and touch .
    • If the message is from an unassigned number, create a contact to associate a name with that number.
    • To open an attached photo, slideshow, or any type of attachment, touch it.
    • To save photos or videos from messages, touch & hold the attachment.
    • To save other attachments, touch & hold a blank space next to the attachment.
    • To find a message, touch at the top of your message list and enter search terms.
    • To learn about something mentioned in the message, touch & hold . Google Assistant shows details, apps, and actions related to the message's contents.
TipIf you do not want multi-recipient SMS messages converted to MMS and want replies sent in separate conversations (threads) to you only, you can turn off group messaging.

Send new message

  1. Touch > Messaging.
  2. Touch .

  3. Enter the recipient and your message. To send your message to several people, enter multiple recipients.

    TipTo send messages to contact groups instead of entering multiple recipient's names, download a different messaging app. Search for “group messaging” in Play Store to select and download an app. You can set the new app to be your default messaging app.

  4. Optionally:

  5. Touch .

Tips for sending messages:

  • To text your best friend with one touch from your home screen, add a Direct message widget.
  • For phones with dual SIM cards, to set one SIM for all messages or to choose a SIM each time you send a message, in the Messaging app, touch > Settings > Sending messages.
  • To change the text message reply to incoming calls, open the Phone app and touch > Settings > Quick responses.

Request delivery reports

See whether recipients receive your messages by requesting delivery reports.

  1. Touch > Messaging.
  2. Touch > Settings.
  3. Check Delivery reports for both text (SMS) and multimedia (MMS) messages.

Manage drafts

When you begin composing a text message reply or a new message with recipients, it is saved in your message list as a draft until you send or delete it.

  1. Open the message list and touch the conversation marked Draft.

  2. Do one:

    • Finish composing the message and touch .
    • Delete the characters in the text field to delete the draft.

Forward a message

  1. Touch > Messaging.
  2. Open the conversation.
  3. Touch & hold the message.
  4. Touch .

Copy text from a message

  1. Touch > Messaging.
  2. Open the conversation.
  3. Touch & hold the message.
  4. Touch Copy text.

You can now paste it elsewhere, like in an email you're composing.

Delete messages

When you delete a message, you also delete any attached photos or videos. If you want the attachments, be sure to save them before deleting the message.

  1. Do any of the following:

    • To delete a single message, open the conversation (thread) and touch & hold the message, then touch Delete.
    • To delete all messages in a conversation, open the conversation and touch > Delete thread.
    • To delete all messages in the Messaging app, go to your message list and touch > Delete all threads. Be careful - there's no way to undo this.
Tips
  • You can set a limit on the number of messages in a conversation and automatically delete old messages once the limit is reached.
  • You can try to recover recently a deleted text message.

Fix a problem

If you’re having problems, try these troubleshooting steps.