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Blocking / Reporting Spam Texts

It's undoubtedly just a coincidence, but as soon as I upgraded to IOS 10, I began receiving spam texts, which I never got before.


A little Googling showed how to block spam texts in IOS 10 (it's a little different than before): http://www.addictivetips.com/ios/how-to-block-a-number-from-messaging-you-in-ios -10/


However, the method for reporting spam texts to Apple now appears to require that “Filter Unknown Senders” be turned on: http://recomhub.com/blog/how-to-report-imessage-spam-on-ios-10-for-iphone-and-ip ad/


I really don't want to leave Filter Unknown Senders on all the time, so my question is, does the filter run (or can you make it run) on texts that have already been received? That is, if I turn on the filter, will all the texts already received that are from senders not in my Contacts be moved into the "Unknown Senders" category from which I can mark a message as spam and report it as junk?


If not, is there any other way to mark/report an already-received text as spam?

iPhone 5s, iOS 10.0.2

Posted on Oct 3, 2016 4:39 PM

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Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Jan 10, 2017 10:27 AM

Thanks for writing that reply. But now I have received a spam message that is SMS, so turning on 'filter unknown senders' does not place the spam in the Unknown Senders category, and I cannot figure a way to report.

9 replies

Jan 18, 2017 3:50 PM in response to Peter Miller

thanks. I found that you can forward the data to AT&T. The phone number was included and surprisingly it was a landline. They have the information. For others who may have AT&T as their carrier and seek a way to help stop this here is the information I dug up with the step by step instructions:

https://www.att.com/esupport/article.html#!/wireless/KM1009046

Jan 18, 2017 3:54 PM in response to bestsides

bestsides wrote:


I have the same problem as the last poster....the message is SMS and does not get put in the Filtered Tab. Is there a way we can force it there so as to be able to report to Apple?? I, too, am on IOS 10.....did not realize they were having this problem.


Apple really has no control over or no way to stop SMS messages. In the U.S. you can report spam messages to your carrier by forwarding the message to SPAM (7726).

Nov 5, 2016 9:22 AM in response to Peter Adler

Thanks for asking this question, Peter. I just received an iMessage spam and went looking for how to report it, which led me to your question here. Thanks to the second article you linked, I turned on the "Filter Unknown Senders" option in Settings > Messages. Upon returning to Messages, the spam message I received was then shown under unknown senders. However, when I viewed the message, there still was no "Delete and Report Junk" option.


Here's where a little serendipity happened. I tried to take a screenshot of the spam message, with the intention of emailing it to "imessage.spam@apple.com". But I accidentally powered off my iPhone instead. I immediately rebooted it, and when I returned to viewing the spam in Messages, now the "Delete and Report Junk" option appeared! Whaddya know.


Next time, I'll try quitting the Messages app and then re-opening it to see if I get the same result without requiring a reboot.


Once I reported the spam, I went back to Settings and turned off "Filter Unknown Senders", as I don't normally want that enabled. It's an inconvenience to have to jump through these hoops just to report a spam iMessage, but until Apple corrects its mistake, the process above is a workaround.


What Apple ought to do is make the "Delete and Report Junk" option appear under iMessages from unknown senders whether the "filter" option is on or not. Another UI approach would be to long-touch on any iMessage, and when the little menu slides up from the bottom of the screen where it presently says "Copy" and "More…", simply add a "Delete and Report Junk" option to that menu. (Being so close to the "Copy" option, a confirmation dialog should be required before actually deleting and reporting.)

Blocking / Reporting Spam Texts

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