How to Schedule a Message for later

By Chris Chaffin, 8 October, 2024

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Scheduling a Text Message

Have you ever told someone that you would text them to remind them to do something, but in the end, you ended up forgetting also! Well, with iOS 18, you can now schedule to send text messages later. So you can now, while it is still on your mind, type out and schedule that text message to be send at a later time. You can actually schedule a text message up to 14 days ahead of time.

Here is the instructions on how to schedule a text message using Voiceover.

1. In messages, go to the persons conversation you want to schedule a message, or go to compose and enter the person you want to schedule the message for.
2. Go to the bottom of the screen, and swipe backwards and double tap on apps.
3. Swipe and double tap on send later. This is going to put it in send later mode. It will stay in this mode until you either go back out of this screen or dismiss it.
4. You are now in the edit field ready to type your message. So type the message you want to schedule to send later.
5. To the left of the edit box, you will find a day and time listed. Double tap this to bring up the pickards so you can change it to the day and time you want. The pickards will be located a couple of swipes to the right after the dictate button.
6. There are 4 pickards; the day, the hour, the minutes, and whether it is AM or PM.
7. So flick up and down on each pickard to choose the day and time you want to send the message.
8. Now just double tap the send button to schedule the message.
9. After sending the message you will notice that it is still in send later mode. This is just in case you want to schedule multiple messages to send to that person.
10. There are 2 ways of turning off send later mode
If you just hit the back button at the top of the screen, it automatically turns off the send later mode.
Or, if you swipe to the left of the edit box where the day and time is listed, flick up,and you will find close. Just double tap close and the send later mode will turn off.

Happy Scheduling!

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Comments

By Dennis Long on Thursday, October 10, 2024 - 22:18

double tap on your apps if they aren't showing. go in there. There you will find either send later or schedule later I forget what it is called.

By peter on Thursday, October 10, 2024 - 22:18

Note, you can also rearrange the items in the list that comes up after activating the "Apps" item. Just double tap and hold, and slide the item up or down in the list. This way you can put the "Send Later" item higher up in the list if you are likely to use it often.

--Pete

By KE8UPE on Thursday, October 10, 2024 - 22:18

Good Terrific Tuesday evening,
At least from my discovering, the person you're texting, must also be an iMessage user. If they don't have an iPhone or iMessage is disabled, this won't work.