How to Schedule Sending Text Messages on Your iPhone

Many of us have always wanted the option to schedule a text message to be sent on our iPhones, but Apple hasn’t integrated this feature natively into iOS (yet). Yes, a possible solution to this is to jailbreak your device and install a third-party addon, but that brings a myriad of problems with it.

Recently, in iOS 12, Apple introduced a new app known as “Shortcuts” which allows you to set shortcuts on your iPhone. Shortcuts can be downloaded both from the app’s Gallery or, can be custom-created / downloaded in the app.

Using the Shortcuts feature, you can schedule sending text messages on your iPhone. The only downside to this method is that as it’s a work-around and isn’t directly integrated into the Messages app – you need to make sure the Shortcuts app on your phone is running in the background. Also, your phone needs to be unlocked at the specified time for the scheduled text message. Otherwise, the message won’t send at the time it’s supposed to.

If you can live with that, then simply follow the steps detailed below to learn how to schedule sending text messages using the Shortcuts app.

1. Open App Store and download Shortcuts. If you already have it installed, skip this step.

2. Once Shortcuts is installed, download the Delayed Time iMessage from the app’s Gallery to your iPhone. Once you tap “Get Shortcut,” it’ll automatically install into the Shortcuts app.

3. In the Shortcuts app tap on the “Delayed Time iMessage” shortcut, and grant it the necessary permissions to access your Contacts list (for selecting who to send the message to).

4. Once you’ve selected the contact you want to send the text message to, type in the message and tap on OK.

5. Select the date and time you want the message to be sent.

That’s it! Your text message is now scheduled to be sent at the date/time you selected.

As mentioned before, since this method is only a workaround, you need to keep the Shortcuts app open in the background to make sure your scheduled text message gets sent on time. Your device also needs to be unlocked at the time you want the message to be sent, otherwise the shortcut won’t be able to run, and you’ll get an error message.

This method has its drawbacks, but until Apple introduces a native scheduling feature in iOS, this will have to do. Also, do note that this method currently works for both text messages and iMessages on mobile numbers only. iCloud email addresses are not supported yet, but hopefully they will be in the future.

If you tap on the actual shortcut in the app, you’ll see the exact sequence of actions that goes into the scheduled text messages shortcut. Don’t get confused or alarmed by it; you just need to follow the method detailed above to schedule a message. The shortcut will take care of the rest by itself.

Let us know below if you found this guide useful. Also, do tell us if you have any other interesting shortcuts to share or think should be covered here.