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The iOS 26 message filter drawing political outrage isn’t new, won’t enabled by default, and might actually make it easier for some texts to be seen.
At WWDC 2025, Apple told users that iOS 26 will give users more control over messages from unknown senders. As a result, politicians began publicly decrying the feature, saying it’d cost them millions of dollars in political donations.
Of course, never mind the fact that the feature has existed, in some form, since 2019 with the advent of iOS 13. The feature is currently known as “Filter Unknown Senders,” and while it’s opt-in only, it actually does the thing that people assume iOS 26 will do — filter out messages with no regard to content.
That means that, yes, you won’t get texts from your local Department of Transportation or Secretary of State claiming that you’ve got outstanding toll payments. It also means that you’ll miss confirmation texts for doctors’ appointments, food delivery, utility companies, or family members letting you know that they got a new number.
That’s why the current feature is opt-in — it’s hardly perfect.
As it turns out, the upcoming change may actually benefit the unknown senders — and should make messaging less frustrating for users, too. The Fast Company spoke directly with Apple about what is actually going to change in iOS 26.
Like a great deal of iOS 26, this is mostly a user interface update
First, the setting is getting a more accurate name. In iOS 13 through iOS 18, the feature is called “Filter Unknown Senders.” In iOS 26, the feature is being rebranded as “Screen Unknown Senders.”
Currently, the feature considers a sender unknown if it meets these two criteria:
- The sender has not been added to your contact list or
- You’ve never responded to a text message from the sender
That isn’t changing. What is changing, however, is where you can find these filtered messages.
Apple says that the “Unknown Senders” inbox will now be easier to locate. In the top right corner, a new always-visible filter button will give users a quick way to jump between their main inbox and the unknown sender inbox.
Additionally, when you receive a text from an unknown sender, the filter button will receive a badge with a number indicating how many texts have been bounced to the unknown senders inbox.
And, as it turns out, the feature is still opt-in — Apple isn’t enabling it by default. As Fast Company puts it, “just because someone installs iOS 26 on their iPhone, texts from… political fundraising groups won’t be automatically filtered out.”
Ultimately, it’s another case of politicians wrapping themselves in the flag, and making mountains out of molehills when it comes to big tech. Apple probably could have explained the feature a bit better, but ultimately, this probably could have been avoided had any political organization aimed before they fired.
