Tired of spam texts? iOS 26’s new filter might be the fix you need

Apple’s new iOS 26 made its debut at the Worldwide Developer Conference this year where its new Liquid Glass design stole all the limelight. However, there is a lot that the new OS for iPhone has to offer beyond just the aesthetics.

A report by 9to5Mac has found a new feature in the iOS 26 beta version that could solve a major source of frustration for most users: spam messages. With iOS 26, Apple is providing an option to silence texts from unknown numbers and filter them into a separate area inside the Messages app.

How does spam filtering on iOS 26 work?

Notably, the Messages app on iOS 26 will ask users if they want the new screening feature to filter out texts detected as possible spam messages. After enabling the feature, users will not get notifications about these possible spam texts and they will be hidden inside a separate section within the app.

Users will still be able to access these texts if they want to by navigating to the filtering tool on the top right corner of the Messages app and switching between different types of texts.

The Messages app now offers four different sections: Messages, Unknown Senders, Spam and Recently Deleted.

Although users will not get notifications for possible spam texts, they will still get a visual prompt on the filters button when there is a screened text that they may want to check. This approach allows users to decide for themselves if they want to spend time reading a text from an unknown sender or just skip it.

While the spam filtering on iOS 26 is a nifty addition to Messages, not all features within the new OS are that great. For instance, fresh reports started coming in this week that Apple will freeze video calls within the FaceTime app if it detects nudity. While this feature was announced as part of the child safety initiative with iOS 26 and other Apple OS versions, it is now affecting all users and there is no way to know for sure if this is a deliberate act by the company or just a bug in the beta version of the UI.