How to See Which Devices are Receiving Forwarded Text Messages from an iPhone

If you have an iPad or a second iPhone, then you have probably noticed that you can receive and send iMessages from those other devices. This allows for an easy way to stay connected through the Messages app, while ensuring that the conversations stay up to date on both devices.

Recently Apple gave these devices the ability to use the feature with text messages as well, via a feature on the iPhone called Text Message Forwarding.

But if you would prefer that your other devices not have the ability to see or send text messages, then you might want to make sure that this feature is turned off.

Our tutorial below will show you where to find the menu that contains this information so that you can make sure the text messages you send and receive can only be sent or received on your iPhone.

If you would like to know more about this feature, our text forwarding iPhone guide can answer additional questions you might have.

Check Your Text Message Forwarding Settings on an iPhone

The steps in this guide were written using an iPhone 5, in iOS 9.3. These steps will also work for other iPhone models using iOS 9 or higher.

Step 1: Open the Settings menu.

open iphone settings

Step 2: Scroll down and select the Messages option.

open the messages menu

Step 3: Select the Text Message Forwarding option.

One other setting to be aware of is the “Send as SMS” feature which can let you send an iMessage as a text message when iMessage isn’t working.

open the text message forwarding menu

Step 4: Check the buttons to the right of the options listed here. These are the other iOS devices that are using your Apple ID. If the button to the right of one of the options on this menu has green shading around in, then that device is able to receive and send text messages from your iPhone.

check text message forwarding settings on iphone

Did you recently start downloading an iOS update, but decide to schedule it to occur overnight? If you decide later that you would like to postpone the update, this article will show you how to cancel a scheduled update.

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