How to find pinned messages on iPhone

A really useful new feature included in iOS 14 is the ability to favorite conversations for easy access at the top of the Messages app. Follow along for how to pin text messages on iPhone and iPad.

Table of Contents Show

iOS 14: How to pin text messages on iPhone and iPad
How to unpin messages on iPhone and iPad
Read more 9to5Mac tutorials:
About the Author
Michael Potuck
Pinning items
How to pin items in a conversation in Messages
Viewing Pins
How to see pinned messages in Messages
Deleting Pins
How to delete pinned links from a conversation in Messages
Where do pinned text messages go on an Iphone?
What happens when you pin a text message?

The Messages app gets a few notable upgrades with this year’s major iOS update including mentions, an emoji search bar, the ability to pin conversations, and also add a photo for the icon of group messages.

The pin message feature is quick and easy to use and places your favorited conversations at the top of the Messages app with large icons. You can pin up to 9 messages on iPhone and iPad.

iOS 14: How to pin text messages on iPhone and iPad

Open the Messages app
Find a conversation you want to pin, long-press on it
Tap Pin ____________
Now you’ll see the pinned message at the top of the app
To undo a pin, long-press on a message or the pinned icon and tap Unpin ___________

Here’s how the process looks:

You can add up to 9 pinned messages, including both iMessages and standard text messages and messages to individuals or groups.

How to unpin messages on iPhone and iPad

Once you’ve hit the maximum of 9, you’ll see an alert to unpin a conversation to add a new one.

Here’s what it looks like to unpin a message:

Long-press the pinned message icon or the message thread from the list below

iPhone

Introduced in 2007 by Steve Jobs, iPhone is Apple's flagship iOS device and easily its most popular product around the world. The iPhone runs iOS and includes a large collection of mobile apps through the App Store.

How To

A collection of tutorials, tips, and tricks from the 9to5Mac team helping you fix and get the most out of your favorite gear.

iOS 14 Basics

About the Author

Michael Potuck

@michaelpotuck

Michael is an editor for 9to5Mac. Since joining in 2016 he has written more than 3,000 articles including breaking news, reviews, and detailed comparisons and tutorials.

If there's a link in a Messages conversation you want to refer to in the future, here's how to keep track of important information by pinning them in iOS 16 and iPadOS 16.1.

Some conversations can be extremely important, such as text-based business meetings containing documents. They may also be more relaxed conversations that can bring up interesting things or stuff you really should remember, like a link to a product to buy.

While you could open a link in a browser and save a bookmark for later, this can take time and be a lot of fuss to complete. Especially if you would rather focus on the conversation itself.

Handily, Apple includes a feature in Messages for iOS 16 and iPadOS 16.1 that lets you pin items in a conversation thread for easy retrieval later.

Typical "pinning" of items in other communication systems may keep the selected item at the top of a page within easy reach, but Apple handles the concept differently. Instead, it highlights the message with a pin symbol.

Pinned items are also placed on a list alongside other pinned elements, so you can quickly see everything you have previously pinned all in one place.

Pinning items

While you may want to pin everything in a conversation, it's actually a more restrictive feature than you may think. While previously you would've been able to pin shared images and documents, now it is practically limited to shared online items.

Pinned items gain a yellow pin icon.

Think more URLs for articles and for YouTube videos rather than for PDFs of bank statements or Word documents.

How to pin items in a conversation in Messages

Open Messages, and select the relevant conversation. Scroll to the item you want to pin.
Long-press the link or item you want to pin until a pop-up menu appears.
Tap Pin.

Pinning an item adds a yellow Pin icon next to the message.

The same process can be used to remove a pin from a pinned item. The exception is the last step, as you have to tap Unpin instead.

Viewing Pins

Aside from scanning a conversation for the yellow icon, there's an easier way to check out what you have recently and previously pinned.

How to see pinned messages in Messages

In a conversation thread, select the profile photo and name at the top of the page.
Scroll down to the section marked Pins. This will give you a list of recently-added pins.
To see a full and historical Pin list, tap See All.

Deleting Pins

Let's say that you're sending links to someone via Messages and they are meant to be temporarily available to that person. At a later time, you may want to remove that link from the conversation, but don't want to scan through the conversation to find it again.

You can delete pinned links at a later time within Messages for iOS 16.

Pinning the link will provide you with a list of what you've shared, but also gives you an opportunity to remove the link from the thread at a later time.

How to delete pinned links from a conversation in Messages

Enter the list of pins by selecting the profile photo and name at the top of the thread, scroll down to Pins and tap See All.
On the list of Pins, tap Select in the top-right corner.
Select relevant Pins to delete by tapping, adding a checkmark to each.
Once all are selected, tap Delete, then Delete Link.

Remember that this doesn't just remove a pin from a link, but that it gets rid of the link from the conversation thread entirely.

Where do pinned text messages go on an Iphone?

When You Pin a Text Message, Where Does It Go? Pinning a thread in Messages will fix that thread to the top of the Messages app. It will remain there until you unpin the message thread. Pinned threads do not appear in the chronological list of threads.

What happens when you pin a text message?

Add stars and pins to access your important messages and conversations: Star messages you want to save. Pin conversations to the top of your message history to make them easier to find.