iOS 26 Will Add 10 New Features to the Messages App on Your iPhone

[MacRumors]

iOS 26 includes significant updates for Messages, with the app set to receive at least 10 new features and changes on the iPhone.

Below, we recap what is new in the Messages app on iOS 26:

• Polls: You can now create polls in group chats, allowing people to vote on topics or questions, such as which restaurant to go to. Apple Intelligence can detect when a poll might come in handy and suggest one.
• Backgrounds: You can now add a background to any conversation, and all participants will see it. You can choose from Apple's selection of backgrounds, or you can set any of your own photos as a background. You can turn off conversation backgrounds in the Settings app if desired.
• Apple Cash in group chats: You can now send and receive Apple Cash in group chats.
• Typing indicators in group chats: You can now see who is typing in group chats.
• "Add Contact" button in group chats: This button makes it easier to add people to the Contacts app in group chats.
• "Select" option: When you tap and hold on a message bubble, a new "Select" option appears. Tapping on it allows you to select a portion of text in a message, whereas you could previously only copy an entire message.
• Unknown sender screening: This new option automatically moves messages from unknown senders to the Unknown Senders folder, and hides notifications for them until you accept them. The app can also detect spam and move it to a new Spam folder, with notifications for these messages also hidden.
• Natural language search: You can now search for photos within a conversation by describing what you are looking for. Examples: "Eric skateboarding in a tie-dye shirt," or "Juli with stickers on her face."
• Photo previews: When a new "Send Photo Previews" setting is turned on, the Messages app will only send a lower-quality preview of a photo while an iPhone is in Low Data Mode. The full photo will be sent later.
• End-to-end encryption for RCS: In March, Apple announced that it planned to add support for end-to-end encrypted RCS messages to the Messages app in a future iOS update, which is likely to be iOS 26, or a later version like iOS 26.1. This change would prevent Apple and any other third party from being able to read RCS messages and attachments while they are being sent between devices, as has always been the case with iMessage blue bubbles.

iOS 26 is available now in developer beta, with a public beta to follow next month. The update will be released later this year for the iPhone 11 and newer.

Article Link: iOS 26 Will Add 10 New Features to the Messages App on Your iPhone

 

[darngooddesign]

Does the Add Contact button have a 'No Journalists' filter?

Asking for a friend.

 

[ufgatorvet]

I don't get this background thing. Perhaps I don't have enough friends iMessaging me enough to care. Sounds like a "me" problem

 

[Wizec]

Unknown Sender filtering is already a feature.

 

[klasma]

You can now add a background to any conversation, and all participants will see it.

Cool! For lack of quoting, I can now set a screenshot of the previous conversation as the background.

 

[mikey918]

Great, are they fixing how awful the RCS implementation is? Mine fails back to SMS probably 40-50% of the time and switches back and forth with every message sent.

 

[Chaos215bar2]

Cool. Will Messages still crash if you leave the phone running for too long without manually opening the app, thus breaking message forwarding?

Because apparently that's not a big enough issue to bother fixing within the span of iOS 18.

 

[WarmWinterHat]

Unknown Sender filtering is already a feature.

Yes, but instead of dumping unknown sender messages in the "all messages" area, it puts them in an "unknown senders" folder that doesn't mix with the others.

Great, are they fixing how awful the RCS implementation is? Mine fails back to SMS probably 40-50% of the time and switches back and forth with every message sent.

My wife uses a Pixel and RCS has been rock-solid between her and I.

T-Mobile for myself and Spectrum (Verizon) for her, if it matters.

 

[Jody Hewell]

I hope they fixed the syncing bug between iCloud devices, and the incorrect badge counts I constantly see.

 

[jz0309]

Yes, but instead of dumping unknown sender messages in the "all messages" area, it puts them in an "unknown senders" folder that doesn't mix with the others.

My preference is actually to have them simply in chronological order, when I get a message from an unknown sender I will read it and decide if it is junk or not.
Example: visited a few new doctors lately and some text me from some automated system, so those are all “unknown” but very legitimate. I don’t want to have them go into some folder that I have to check.
So hopefully this new feature will just allow me to have the old behavior as an option.

This reminds me of the (stupid to me) categorization in mail.

 

[mthomas184]

Great, are they fixing how awful the RCS implementation is? Mine fails back to SMS probably 40-50% of the time and switches back and forth with every message sent.

RCS has been awful for me too.

 

[LouisPiper]

I was really hoping for some sort of notification control with this release. Getting a picture sent in a group thread (1) and then every single participant liking the photo (15) is an insane amount of notifications. It should be ONE.

 

[antiprotest]

I don't get this background thing. Perhaps I don't have enough friends iMessaging me enough to care. Sounds like a "me" problem

I think the purpose is to make an unreadable OS become even more unreadable.

 

[mystery hill]

I just want to be able to edit the URL when pasting a link. I have to copy it to Notes, edit, then paste.

This can be done on WhatsApp.

 

[klasma]

I hope they fixed the syncing bug between iCloud devices, and the incorrect badge counts I constantly see.

I’ve been hoping that for the Mail app for I don’t know how many years.

 

[upandown]

Do we know if end to end encryption is active in beta 1?

 

[TechRunner]

My wife uses a Pixel and RCS has been rock-solid between her and I.

T-Mobile for myself and Spectrum (Verizon) for her, if it matters.

Same. My wife's Pixel 6 Pro and my 16PM have no issues with RCS implementation. She'll be upgrading to P10P this fall, and I expect the same level of operation.

 

[nfl46]

Backgrounds work with Android users as well.

 

[winxmac]

I hated the backgrounds/themes in Facebook Messenger and I feel the same way now that it is available in iOS 26 Messages. The only time I'm okay with having backgrounds in a text conversation was back when Yahoo! Messenger was still a thing.

 

[WarmWinterHat]

Backgrounds work with Android users as well.

View attachment 2518996

Whoa! I guess backgrounds is part of RCS?

 

[Diopter]

There should definitely be an option with backgrounds to select between using the shared background or using your own background, so that you don't have to force a background on the other person (or have a background forced on to you). Essentially, like the way contact photos work.

I know there's a general setting to turn off all backgrounds, but it's a bit silly to have to turn them off for all conversations.

 

[Macropanda]

So can you set a background but not share it with others/keep your own and not see what others have set theirs as? Or is it a choice between the plain White/Black background or the shared one only?

 

[Wizec]

Yes, but instead of dumping unknown sender messages in the "all messages" area, it puts them in an "unknown senders" folder that doesn't mix with the others.

This is going to throw a lot of non technical people for a loop. Hopefully this can be opted out of.

 

[WarmWinterHat]

This is going to throw a lot of non technical people for a loop. Hopefully this can be opted out of.

Looks like its opt-in.

 

[Diopter]

So can you set a background but not share it with others/keep your own and not see what others have set theirs as? Or is it a choice between the plain White/Black background or the shared one only?

From what I've seen, it seems like it's a choice of:

1. shared backgrounds in all conversations
2. turn off all backgrounds in all conversations

At least in beta 1, I haven't seen any option to opt out on a per-conversation basis or to specify your own background (that only you see)? Unless someone else can see a way to do it?