See Blocked Messages on iPhone

See Blocked Messages on iPhone.

When you block someone on your iPhone, they can’t contact you via phone, messages, or FaceTime, and iOS won’t send notifications. You also cannot view new messages from blocked contacts. But silence instead of blocking, and you can still see new messages whenever you want.

The workaround was to set your iPhone to disable phone numbers instead of blocking them. Muting a contact is like a “soft or partial” lock. You won’t receive notifications when muted contacts send you messages. The messages won’t even show up in your iPhone’s inbox, but you can view them at any time. We’ll show you how to view new messages (iMessage, SMS, and MMS) from muted contacts on your iPhone.

Note. The methods in this article only allow you to view iPhone messages (iMessages and text messages) and not messages from third-party apps like WhatsApp.

iOS, Messages, and Blocked Contacts

As mentioned earlier, blocked contacts and blocked numbers cannot leave you messages – SMS, MMS or iMessage. When someone texts you, their service provider charges them, but the messages don’t get to your iPhone. Similarly, messages are not stored anywhere on your iPhone. Therefore, you cannot view new messages from blocked contacts.

Android handles blocked messages and conversations relatively better than iOS. For example, when you block someone on some Android phones, new messages from the blocked contact are stored in a special “Spam & Blocked” folder. iOS does not save old or new messages from blocked contacts in any specific folder.

On iPhone and iPad, you can only view old conversations and messages from a blocked contact in the Messages app. iOS permanently blocks new messages from blocked contacts, making it impossible to view them. See our explainer on what happens when you block a number on iPhone for more information.

Our Workaround: Silence Unwanted Calls & Texts

However, there is a workaround to view blocked messages. The idea is to mute calls and text messages from a contact rather than block them. Here is a summary of the process:

Unblock a contact so your iPhone can receive new messages from that person.Delete a contact from your iPhone so that the phone number becomes an “Unknown Contact”.Set up your iPhone/iPad to block messages from unknown contacts. This causes iOS to disable text notifications from a person. Your iPhone also saves blocked messages in a separate folder on your device.Also set your device to block calls from unknown callers.

This method blocks communication with the contact, but makes new messages (from the person) available. Let’s figure it out.

Unblock the Contact on iPhone

There are several ways to unblock contacts on iOS devices – through the Settings menu, FaceTime apps, Phone, and Contacts. For more information, see our guide to unblocking contacts on iPhone and Android.

Follow these steps to unblock a user in the iOS settings menu.

Open the Settings app, select Phone and tap Blocked Contacts.Swipe left on the number you want to unblock and tap Unblock.

Alternatively, tap Edit in the top right corner and tap the red minus icon next to the contact you want to unblock. Click “Unblock” to remove the number/contact from the blocked list.

Click Done to save your changes.

If your iPhone is running iOS 13 or earlier, go to Settings > Phone > Call Blocking & Identification. Swipe left on the number you want to remove from the blocked list and tap Unblock.

The next step is to set your iPhone to turn off message notifications and hide messages from an unblocked contact

Filter Messages by Unknown Senders

iOS has a “Filter Unknown Senders” feature that turns off message notifications from people who aren’t in your contact list. In addition, it saves messages from unsaved contacts to a hidden folder in the Messages app.

Here’s how to enable the “Filter Unknown Messages” feature on your iPhone:

Open Settings and select Messages.Scroll to Message Filtering and turn on Filter Unknown Senders.

After that, open the Messages app and tap Filters in the top left corner. Open the Unknown Senders folder to view messages from phone numbers not saved in Contacts.

Silence Unknown Callers

Equally important is setting your iPhone to block calls from unknown callers; this is the second stage of the process. Enabling the Disable Unknown Callers feature prevents unsaved contacts from contacting you via text messages or phone calls. This feature will mute calls from unknown callers (your iPhone won’t ring) and send them to your voicemail.

Go to Settings > Phone > Mute unknown callers and turn on Mute unknown callers.

Delete the Contact and Disable Siri Suggestion

The last step is to remove the person’s contact from your iPhone. They will no longer be able to call or send messages because their number is not saved on your device. However, note that a person can still contact you if their contact or phone number is in your iPhone’s call history or Siri suggestions.

Before deleting a contact, remove all occurrences of the contact from iPhone Recent Calls.

Open the Phone app and scroll through the Recent tab to see if a contact is in your call history. If you find any occurrence of a contact, click Edit in the top right corner and tap the red minus icon next to the contact.Select Delete to remove the contact from the list.

Then go to the Contacts tab and click on the contact you want to delete.Click on Edit in the top right corner, scroll down the contact details page and select Delete Contact.Click on Delete “. Please contact us for confirmation to continue.

One more thing you need to do is turn off the Siri suggestion for the Phone and Contacts apps.

Go to Settings > Siri & Search and select Phone from the list of apps at the bottom of the page.

Disable display when calling in the “Offers” section.

Return to the Siri & Search page and turn off the Siri suggestion for the Contacts app.

Select Contacts and turn off Show Contact Suggestions.

Block Them, View Their Messages

Your iPhone will block calls and messages from unwanted or unknown callers and senders if you follow these steps correctly. But most importantly, you will be able to view blocked messages in the Unknown Senders folder of the Messages app. This is a lengthy workaround, but it’s the best way to view messages from people you’ve blocked from contacting you.

However, one of the main disadvantages is that you will miss calls from all unsaved or unknown contacts. Therefore, we recommend that you save important contacts on your iPhone so that you do not miss important phone calls or messages.