How to Add Messages to Spotlight Search on an iPhone

Spotlight Search is accessed by swiping down on your iPhone’s Home screen. You can then type something into the search field at the top of the screen, and your iPhone will search your device for that term. But not every app is included in Spotlight Search by default, so you will need to make some changes to the settings in order to include additional locations on your device.

If you think that it will be helpful to include your text messages and iMessages in Spotlight Search, then you can follow the steps in our guide below to learn how to add that location.

Include Messages in Spotlight Search on an iPhone

The steps in this article were performed on an iPhone 6 Plus, in iOS 8.4.

  • Step 1: Open the Settings menu.
open the settings menu
  • Step 2: Scroll down and select the General option.
select the General option
  • Step 3: Select the Spotlight Search option.
open the spotlight search menu
  • Step 4: Scroll down and select the Messages option.
include messages in spotlight search

Note that you can also select any of the other options on this list as well. However, including more items in Spotlight search can affect your battery life, as increasing the number of options in Spotlight Search will increase the frequency at which these options must be indexed, which will use more battery.

You can adjust the order in which your results appear in Spotlight Search by tapping and holding on the three lines to the right of an item, then dragging that item up or down in the list.

Are there group messages that you are involved in that often have a lot of new messages? All of the notifications from that conversation can be overwhelming, so learn how to mute an individual group message to stop the notifications from that conversation until you manually decide that you want them to resume. You will still receive the new messages in the conversation, you just won’t hear or see the notifications.

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