How To Schedule Messages On Your iPhone Or Mac

In iOS 18, iPadOS 18 and macOS Sequoia you can now schedule messages to be sent later. You can stack up more than one scheduled message and edit them or delete them before they are sent.

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Video Transcript: This is Gary with MacMost. Let's take a look at how to schedule messages to be sent later on your iPhone. 
So this is a new feature in iOS18 and also, of course,  in iPad OS18 and macOS Sequoia. Here's how it works on the iPhone. You can type a message first, if you like, and then normally you would tap right here to send it. But instead, say I wanted to send this tomorrow morning, I could tap the Plus button to the left and then select Send Later. Now you can see at the top here it says when it's going to send it. The default for the time I'm sending it right now is today at 5 p.m. The end of the workday. But I could change that to a different date and I could set it to a different time. So I can make this message sent tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. Now when I tap the Send button it won't send. You can see the message looks different there. It says it is going to send it later and has the time. Notice that you're still in Send Later Mode. It still says tomorrow 9 a.m. So if I were to type another message that one would also get sent right after the first. If I send this one you can see it just lines up right under that one. But I can tap here and then change the time. So I can have another message and have this one sent at a different time. Like that. You can see them lined up right there. 
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Now since these haven't been sent yet you can edit and change them. So, for instance, if I wanted to change this one I can tap and hold the message itself and then I can delete it or edit it. If I were to edit it I can change whatever the text says. You can also change the time on any of these. Just tap the little Edit button right there and you can delete the message from here as well or you can send it right now or edit the time and change when this particular message gets sent. So a lot of possibilities here. For instance, you may want to create a message and have it be sent at the end of the day but then later on decide you just want to send it now or send it a bit earlier. You can do that. Notice also when I swipe from right to left I see the times of my previous message like before but I also see the times of the messages to be sent in the future. 
Now if I want to keep these scheduled but want to send a message to that person right now all I need to do is simply tap the little x there and I'm back in normal mode. Anything that I were to type and send right now would be sent now and these still would be scheduled for later.
You can also use Send Later in replies. You can tap and hold the previous message just like before and then select reply and then with the reply you still can choose Send Later. So you can reply to a specific message to have it grouped under the initial one and still have it scheduled. Send Later even works in other places. For instance here if I want to take this message here and forward it to somebody I can choose More and with that selected I can Forward it to another person and, guess what?, yep I can have that send later as well. 
This works the same way on iPad OS 18 and also in macOS Sequoia. Here's how you do it in Sequoia. You would go to the Messages App and type the message and you still have the same Plus button. You just click it with your Pointer there and you get the Send Later options. Everything looks like it should look in macOS instead of iOS but the functionality is the same. 
Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 12 Responses to “How To Schedule Messages On Your iPhone Or Mac”

Sheldon

6 months ago

Thanks bunches

Gary J

Apparently this only works if all the message recipients have an iPhone using iMessage, otherwise it's not available and SMS is indicated in the text box.

Susan

Thanks so much for another really useful tutorial.
Thanks also for the comment that this only work if the recipient have an iPhone using iMessage. The Send Later option is missing for recipients without it.

Tom

Grest Info. This is a great feature, But I have noticed that when you share info from an app (for examine the results in a Wordle) the plus sign is grayed out. Is there another way to delay this type of message?

Gary Rosenzweig

Tom: Not sure why it is grayed out for you there. Are you sure you are sending to someone with iMessages?

Yes I am. This is weird to me also. Thanks

Tom: I'm not seeing any problem when sharing from other apps, like for instance Safari. It just ends up in Messages like any other message. It appears to be the same as if I copy and pasted the link manually, for instance. Not sure what you are doing here. Are you just on a web page and then click the Share button and then Message? Or are you doing something else?

I am actually send the results from the NYT puzzles page. I also tried to share page from safari and the plus was still grayed out. Looks like this is one for apple support. Thanks

Jim E Goddard

I thought I remembered from an earlier communication from Apple that they were fixing this Cross message problem so that you could send to someone with an android device. Am II thought I remembered from an earlier communication from Apple that they were fixing this Cross message problem so that you could send to someone with an android device. Am I correct or am I mistaken?

Jim: I think I heard the same thing. Apple usually doesn't formally announce such things, especially for small features, so I don't think there is anything official.

Bill H

1 month ago

Nice video but (and not your fault) about a feature that's nearly useless in the real world. Can only use to send to other iPhone users? So much for group texts and messages to at least half my friends. And if I can't use it all the time, why bother to use it at all -- it's too confusing to remember from whom it work. Oh sure I can start a message and then find out that it *won't * work, but that's too frustrating to bother with. How can we get Apple to go with the program?

Bill: I image this has to do with reliability. With SMS, the app would need to send the message at the time. If your iPhone is offline, or the app isn't running, etc, then it won't work and it would be a bad experience. But with iMessage Apple controls the system and so can schedule it to work regardless.