While in some ways it feels like a throwback to an older era, the reality is that spam texts are just as prevalent now as they were a decade ago, and might even be more of a problem than ever.

Whether it's a load of information you never asked for or an attempt to get you to send sensitive information through to a stranger, these texts are at best a nuisance and at worst a real security risk. So, if you're on an iPhone and you want to try to do something about it, there are a few tweaks you can make to make your life more spam-resistant.

How to stop spam messages on iPhone

While you can't fully block spam messages since the nature of the beast means that would involve stopping all incoming messages from new numbers entirely, which isn't practical, you can go a long way toward filtering them.

iPhones have a setting that lets you filter out messages from new numbers into a separate category for you to review, instead of putting them in your inbox with everything else. You can do that using the steps below:

  1. Open your Settings app
  2. Scroll down and tap on Messages
  3. Scroll down to the Message Filtering section and toggle Filter Unknown Senders on

Now when you go to your Messages app you'll see that there's a Filters button at the top-left of your display. Tapping on this lets you choose between different views, including options to only see known senders.

This is a great way to manage your incoming messages - without locking you out of reviewing messages from new numbers at your leisure.

Turn off notifications from unknown messages on iPhone

To complete the trick, though, and have you blissfully ignorant every time a spam text comes in, you'll want to turn off notifications on texts from new messagers.

This is easy to accomplish, so just follow the steps below.

  1. Open the Settings app
  2. Tap on Notifications
  3. Scroll down and tap on Messages
  4. Tap on Customise Notifications at the bottom of the page
  5. Toggle Unknown Senders off

This will mean that you don't get buzzed or beeped at when a new text comes in from an unknown number - it'll just go into your filtered inbox as set up above.

Of course, this does make for the possibility that you'll occasionally filter out a message from a real person or reputable source, but since you can always check your messages in the Messages app via the filters, you should be able to proactively avoid any downsides there.