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Scheduling a Text message

Is there a way to create a text message and schedule a different time for the text message to be sent?

Posted on May 16, 2022 8:18 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on May 18, 2022 4:56 AM

You can do this by creating a personal automation in Apple's Shortcuts app. If you don’t have Shortcuts on your iPhone you can download it from the App Store.


Open Shortcuts. Tap Automation. Tap Create Personal Automation. Tap Time of Day. Tap the time to change it and tap AM or PM. Tap Monthly. Select the month and day. Tap Next. Under the Next Action Suggestions subheading, tap the Send Message action. Alternatively, enter the search term in the search field to find it. Tap in the "Message" text field and type a message. Tap in the Recipients text field. Add a recipient or recipients. Tap Done. Tap Next. Switch off Ask Before Running to automate the sending of the message. Confirm by tapping Don’t Ask in the dialog popup. You may switch on Notify When Run. Tap Done.


If you want to test the automation, add yourself and/or a member of your household as the only recipient/s and tap the run icon (▶︎) in the Actions screen. You also can set a near future time (e.g. current date & time + 𝑥 min) to test that it auto-runs. Note that iPhone needs to be powered on at the time the message is sent. Since there isn’t an option to run the automation only once, you’ll need to either disable the automation by switching off Enable This Automation in the Edit Automation screen, or deleting it by swiping left on the automation in the Automation screen. You’ll want to do this any time after the automation has run but before it is scheduled to run again in a month’s time. You might want to set a reminder in the Reminders app for this.



5 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

May 18, 2022 4:56 AM in response to MidwestMac

You can do this by creating a personal automation in Apple's Shortcuts app. If you don’t have Shortcuts on your iPhone you can download it from the App Store.


Open Shortcuts. Tap Automation. Tap Create Personal Automation. Tap Time of Day. Tap the time to change it and tap AM or PM. Tap Monthly. Select the month and day. Tap Next. Under the Next Action Suggestions subheading, tap the Send Message action. Alternatively, enter the search term in the search field to find it. Tap in the "Message" text field and type a message. Tap in the Recipients text field. Add a recipient or recipients. Tap Done. Tap Next. Switch off Ask Before Running to automate the sending of the message. Confirm by tapping Don’t Ask in the dialog popup. You may switch on Notify When Run. Tap Done.


If you want to test the automation, add yourself and/or a member of your household as the only recipient/s and tap the run icon (▶︎) in the Actions screen. You also can set a near future time (e.g. current date & time + 𝑥 min) to test that it auto-runs. Note that iPhone needs to be powered on at the time the message is sent. Since there isn’t an option to run the automation only once, you’ll need to either disable the automation by switching off Enable This Automation in the Edit Automation screen, or deleting it by swiping left on the automation in the Automation screen. You’ll want to do this any time after the automation has run but before it is scheduled to run again in a month’s time. You might want to set a reminder in the Reminders app for this.



Scheduling a Text message

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