The Messages app for iOS and iPadOS has many hidden features, but one of them can save you time and energy when you need to forward or copy and paste messages from an SMS, MMS, or iMessage conversation.
The tricks I’m about to show work for sending text, photos, videos, audio, links, and documents to another contact or group of contacts in messages. You can also use them to copy messages and paste them into another application. The same concept can even be used to move content from another app to Messages. They only work on iOS 15 and later for iPhone, but the iPad has features since iOS 11.
The normal (slow) way of forwarding and deleting messages
A variation that most of you are probably already familiar with, which has been around since before iOS was called iOS, starts with a long press gesture.
Just press and hold on any message in a conversation until a preview and quick actions appear, then select More. If necessary, select additional messages using the dots on the left and click the curved arrow button to forward the selected content, or click the trash can to delete it.
Forwarding opens a new draft with attached content; Enter one or more contacts in the “To”field, then click the “Submit”button. When deleting messages, press the “Delete”button to confirm.
Overall, this is a slow process and somewhat frustrating, as it’s easy to accidentally select a message you don’t want to forward or delete. Also, you’re stuck in the Messages app, so you can’t use the More menu to select content to move to another app, like Notes, Mail, or Reminders.
Faster ways to forward or copy/paste messages
The faster way to forward SMS, MMS, and iMessages to another person or group doesn’t include the More menu, but it does start with a long press gesture. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work for deleting messages, so you’ll have to stick to the traditional way above to delete items.
Just touch and hold any message in a conversation, then drag it without lifting your finger from the screen. You can start dragging as soon as you commit the message (usually just before the preview and quick actions appear) or after the preview and quick actions are fully loaded.
If you only want to paste or forward the one message you are holding, use your free hand to use any gesture or button on the screen while still holding the message. You can then do different things with it:
- Drag a message into the current chat text field to paste it.
- Return to the list of conversations, then drag the message to another conversation to insert it into a new draft.
- Return to the list of conversations, select a chat, then place a message in the text field to paste it.
- Exit the Messages app, open the target app, then drag the message to the desired location to paste the content. For example, you can drag a message to a new or current page in Notes, a task in Reminders, an email in Mail, and so on.
Whenever you can remove the selection to paste it, you will see a plus sign (+) to let you know that you can do so. If you don’t see a plus or see a crossed out icon, nothing will happen if you release the button. So if you decide you don’t want to paste what you’re holding, let go when you don’t see a plus sign.
To insert multiple things at once, click on the other messages you want to add after moving the selected original message away from you. You’ll see them jump over the original message you’re holding, and a number will appear indicating how many things are selected.
With this method, you can copy and paste anything into a Messages conversation – text, photos, videos, audio, links, and documents.
Another feature of the drag and drop method is that you can select multiple items at the same time with different fingers and then drag them into place. This is different from using one finger to hold the entire group.
This method also works vice versa. You can select one or more things in another app and then drag them into the Messages conversation and paste them. For example, you can highlight text on a web page, press and hold it, move it away from you, and then go to Messages. You can also long press on a URL and do the same. Another example: press and hold an image or video in Photos, quickly move it and select other images or videos if you like, then paste them into messages.