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    Phone & Tablet
    Beginner
    6 min read 5 stepsMay 8, 2026Verified May 2026

    How to Schedule a Text to Send Later on iPhone

    Write a text now and let your iPhone send it tomorrow morning. Here is the plain way to schedule birthday wishes and reminders ahead of time.

    At a Glance

    Category
    Phone & Tablet
    Difficulty
    Beginner
    Read Time
    6 min read
    Steps
    5
    Topics covered
    iphone
    messages
    scheduling
    seniors
    reminders

    In this guide (5 steps):

    1. 1.Open Messages and Pick a Conversation
    2. 2.Tap the Plus Sign to Open the Apps Menu
    3. 3.Pick the Date and Time
    4. 4.Type Your Message and Tap Send
    5. 5.Edit or Cancel a Scheduled Message
    1

    Open Messages and Pick a Conversation

    ~30s
    Tap the green Messages icon on your home screen. Tap the conversation with the person you want to schedule a message to. Make sure you see blue bubbles in the conversation, which means the person is on an iPhone using iMessage. If you see green bubbles, the scheduling feature will not work for that contact. Tap the white text box at the bottom of the screen so the keyboard pops up.

    Warning

    Send Later only works for iMessage (blue bubbles). It does not work for SMS texts to Android phones (green bubbles).

    2

    Tap the Plus Sign to Open the Apps Menu

    ~36s
    Look to the left of the white text box at the bottom of the screen. You will see a small plus sign (+) inside a gray circle. Tap that plus sign one time. A menu slides up from the bottom of the screen with options like Camera, Photos, Stickers, and others. Scroll down through this menu and look for an option called "Send Later." Tap Send Later. If you do not see this option, your iPhone may be running an older version of iOS.

    Quick Tip

    Make sure your iPhone is updated. Go to Settings, General, Software Update and install any pending update. Send Later requires iOS 18 or newer.

    3

    Pick the Date and Time

    ~37s
    After tapping Send Later, a date and time picker appears at the top of the keyboard area. The picker shows the current date and time as a starting point. Spin the date and time wheels with your finger to pick exactly when you want the message to arrive. You can pick any date up to fourteen days in the future. Common choices are 8:00 a.m. tomorrow morning for a birthday wish, or 9:00 p.m. tonight for an evening reminder.

    Warning

    The time you pick is your iPhone's local time, not the recipient's local time. If you are texting someone in another time zone, do the math first or the message may arrive in the middle of their night.

    4

    Type Your Message and Tap Send

    ~37s
    Type your message in the text box the same way you would type any text. You can also dictate it by tapping the microphone icon. When the message is ready, tap the blue up-arrow button to schedule it. The message appears in your conversation marked with a small clock icon and the date and time it will send. The message is now scheduled. You can close the Messages app, turn off your phone, or do anything else, and the message will still send at the chosen time.

    Quick Tip

    Write several birthday and anniversary messages for the whole month at once and schedule each one for the right day. You will never forget another family birthday.

    5

    Edit or Cancel a Scheduled Message

    ~39s
    If you change your mind, open the conversation and find the scheduled message with the clock icon. Press and hold the message bubble. A menu pops up with options to "Edit" the message text, change the "Send Time," or "Delete" the scheduled send. Tap Send Time to pick a new date and time. Tap Edit to change the words. Tap Delete to cancel the message entirely. The recipient never sees a scheduled message until it actually sends, so canceling leaves no trace on their end.

    Quick Tip

    If you accidentally schedule a message for the wrong year, you can fix it by pressing and holding the bubble before the date arrives. Once it sends, you only have two minutes to undo it.

    You Did It!

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    If you have ever been wide awake at 2 a.m. remembering that tomorrow is your grandson's birthday, you know how useful it would be to write the text right then and have your iPhone deliver it at a polite hour the next morning. Apple added scheduled messaging to the iPhone with iOS 18 in late 2024. You can now write a text any time of day, pick the exact date and time you want it delivered, and your iPhone holds onto the message until then. The recipient never knows the difference. To them, the text arrives at the time you chose.

    This feature solves several problems for seniors. You can write all your birthday and anniversary messages a week ahead of time and let the phone deliver each one on the right day. You can write a reminder to a family member to take their medication and have it land at the exact time they need to remember. You can write a thank-you note the night you get home from a dinner party and have it delivered at a normal morning hour the next day. You can write a message to a family member in a different time zone and have it arrive when they wake up, not when you are typing late at night.

    The feature is called Send Later. And it is built right into the Messages app. There is no extra app to download. The catch is that you need iOS 18 or newer on your iPhone, which most iPhone 11 models and newer can run. Both you and the recipient need to be using iMessage with blue bubbles. Send Later does not work for green bubble SMS messages to Android phones. If you try to schedule a green bubble message, the option will not appear.

    A scheduled message can be canceled or rescheduled any time before it sends. You see all your scheduled messages in the conversation thread, marked with a small clock icon. Press and hold the message to edit the date and time or to delete the scheduled send entirely. The iPhone will send the message even if you turn the phone off, because the actual sending happens on Apple's servers, not on your phone. So you can write a happy birthday message tonight, turn off your phone for the weekend, and the message will still arrive on time. That kind of reliability is rare in technology and worth using.

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    iphone
    messages
    scheduling
    seniors
    reminders

    Official Resources

    Apple Support — iPhoneGoogle Help — AndroidSamsung Support

    Sources used to create and verify this guide. View all sources →

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