Summary
- If you’re an iPhone user, then there’s a high probability that you’re also an iMessage user.
- For as mainstream as iMessage is, it offers a number of useful features that hardly anyone utilizes.
- Here are some of the very best, lesser-known, and underappreciated features available within Apple’s default messaging service.
Apple’s iMessage texting service is ubiquitous within North America. With the iPhone’s massive market share across both the US and Canada, the vast majority of domestic smartphone users utilize iMessage in at least some capacity.
Since initially releasing iMessage back in 2011, Apple has slowly but steadily been introducing new features and functionalities into its proprietary messenger application, to varying levels of success and user adoption levels.
Some of these additions — including in-line replies, emoji reactions, and group chat naming — have taken off. Others, however, are lesser-known and underappreciated. Here are some of the most useful hidden features you’ll find within the modern Message experience.
Apple Messages
Apple’s default Messages app is home to iMessege, the company’s proprietary messaging service that works securely across iDevices.
1 Effortlessly create custom emoji and stickers
The world is your oyster when it comes to self-expression on iMessage
Emoji have become the go-to method of infusing personality and intent within text-based conversations, and for good reason: it’s often difficult to decipher tone, sarcasm, and other nuances without the help of these lovingly cute little pictograms.
The Unicode Consortium is always introducing new and ever-more creative emoji into the character standard (which are all documented on the excellent Emojipedia website), but you don’t actually have to wait for new designs to drop.
If you’re using iMessage, Apple makes it super easy to create your own emoji.
If you’re using iMessage, Apple makes it super easy to create your own emoji, or to use any and all stickers as emoji. The company has fused together its sticker and emoji picker interfaces, and iOS has a built-in AI tool that lets you pull foreground images from your camera roll to emojify them.
More recently, as of iOS 18.2, compatible iPhones with Apple Intelligence are even able to use a new generative AI tool for crafting emoji out of thin air via text prompts. Pocket-lint has a full how-to guide on Genmoji and its various intricacies.
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2 Schedule messages to send at the appropriate time
iMessage has a built-in Send Later function, and it’s extremely useful
One of the more recent features to make its way into iMessage is Send Later, which allows you to easily schedule messages to be sent at a later date and time. Other instant messaging clients have included similar functionality for quite some time, but it’s relatively new to the Apple ecosystem.
If you want to wish your friend or relative a happy birthday without forgetting to do so on the day of the event, then Send Later is the perfect tool to have at your disposal. Likewise, if you want to send an important business message to a colleague but don’t want to disturb them at an odd hour of the night, it’s super simple to schedule your message to be sent in the AM.
The Send Later feature is tucked away within the + menu of iMessage, making for somewhat difficult discovery of the tool if you don’t already know about it.
Once I remembered that the feature was indeed a part of the iMessage experience, I personally started to leverage it on a regular basis. Thankfully, I’ve never missed another important event or birthday ever since Send Later entered the equation.
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3 Doodle your way through iMessage, PictoChat style
Digital Touch is a quirky-yet-endearing feature that hardly anyone knows about
The Digital Touch feature within iMessage traces its roots to the Apple Watch, where quick doodles, heart pulses, and psychedelic bursts of color are easier to work with than touch typing on a tiny display panel.
On the iPhone, there’s arguably less need for such a feature, which is probably why it hasn’t seen the sort of mainstream appeal as some other iMessage features. That being said, I love using Digital Touch for its quirky-yet-endearing interaction model.
…the one-two punch of Digital Touch and handwritting mode is hard to resist.
Perhaps even less known is the ability to handwrite messages or sketches by rotating your iPhone into landscape orientation. By tapping on the doodle button located on the virtual keyboard, iMessage turns into a makeshift PictoChat, harkening back to the nostalgia-fueled days of the Nintendo DS.
If you’re tired of tapping away on your iPhone’s glass screen and want to inject some personality into your iMessage experience, then the one-two punch of Digital Touch and handwritting mode is hard to resist.
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4 Calculate and convert units directly from your message threads
You don’t need to power up your calculator app for quick math equations
When Apple went ahead and refreshed the calculator app across its software lineup in iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS 15 Sequoia, much of the attention was placed on the unique Math Notes feature. While it’s certainly useful and impressive to draw out equations using an Apple Pencil on an iPad, iMessage has a trick of its own up its sleeve.
As it turns out, the iMessage text input field is a calculator in its own right.
As it turns out, the iMessage text input field is a calculator in its own right. By typing out an expression and following it up with an equals sign, the system will automatically solve the equation in real time.
Perhaps even more useful is the baked-in unit conversion feature, which works much the same: type in height, weight, temperature, distance, or otherwise, and following it up with an equals sign will convert it into other units accordingly.
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5 Add subject lines to your iMessage bubbles
The Show Subject Field is a little-known feature that makes it easy to organize the content of your messages
The Show Subject Field setting is a classic option that’s been around since the Short Message Service (SMS) and Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) days of yesteryear. Nowadays, the feature is turned off by default, and as a result it’s hardly used by anyone.
The utility of the subject field might not be immediately obvious, but it can be a useful tool for drawing attention to important message bubbles, organizing your thoughts under overarching umbrella categories, and more.
If you’d like to enable the subject field within iMessage, follow these steps:
- Navigate to Settings.
- Scroll down and tap on Apps.
- Scroll through the list until you find the Messages application, and then tap on the entry.
- Toggle on Show Subject Field.
If you ever change your mind and want to disable the subject field, simply follow these same steps and toggle off Show Subject Field.
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