In today’s world, everyone from legitimate marketers to scammers is vying for your attention. With a mobile phone in nearly every pocket, many of these have turned to SMS text messages as a way to extend their reach. After all, it’s a fast means of communication that’s much more likely to be noticed than traditional email messages. Plus, there aren’t nearly as many spam filtering solutions available for dealing with text messages, making them ripe for abuse. Here, we’ll explore your options for reducing spam, depending on your phone type.
For both iPhone and Android users, the first rule of dealing with spam text messages is the same as for email: Don’t interact with them in any way. Don’t reply to a spam text, even if there’s a valid “opt-out” option, as you’ll just be confirming your existence. And definitely don’t click on any links in a text, as some of these can lead to sites that will try to install malware on your phone. Contrary to popular belief, smartphones aren’t immune to such things. Instead, check out our guides below for ways in which you can deal with unwanted text messages.
If you’re looking for tips on how to stop spam calls instead, see our guide on how to stop spam calls on iPhone and Android phones!
Joe Maring/Digital Trends
How to report spam texts on an iPhone
While it’s nearly impossible to avoid text message spam entirely, you can help cut down on it by reporting spam texts to your carrier and Apple. Thankfully, Apple has made this very easy to do in iOS 16 with a one-tap reporting feature. This can also be used to report the rare bit of text spam that comes through Apple’s iMessage service, but it’s best at helping you report SMS/MMS spam — as long as your carrier supports it.
