iOS 26 brings a hidden iMessage feature you’ll want to try: All you need to know

Apple has rolled out several rounds of developer and public betas for its iOS 26, and the new software is all set to be showcased on the iPhone 17 series next month, followed by a public rollout. While Liquid Glass and Apple Intelligence were the talk of the town when Apple first revealed iOS 26 at WWDC 2025, the new OS also has a lot more to offer, as we have seen with multiple beta updates so far.

One of the key apps getting an update in iOS 26 is Messages, which is getting a number of new filtering options, most of which are aimed at targeting spam and junk texts. However, there are also some filters that are even more useful — one of which is a new Drafts folder.

The filter appears through a new filter button located at the top right corner of the screen and includes sections like Messages, Spam, and Recently Deleted. However, when users have a conversation with a partially written message, they will also see a Drafts filter in these settings.

Clicking on the new filter leads to the Messages app listing all the conversations with partial messages, which users can review and complete.

When any of the filters in the Messages app are active, the toolbar gets a prominent blue tint to ensure that the user does not forget they are only seeing a subset of messages. Tapping on the button again removes the selected filter and gives users access to the full inbox again.

Notably, iMessage never had a Drafts folder-like feature until now, which meant that if you started typing something in a chat and backed out, the text just stayed in that conversation, and the only way to find it was to scroll manually through your list of chats.

The introduction of the Drafts feature allows users to not only filter conversations but also take their time to think through a message before ultimately sending it.

The change to the Messages app comes at a time when Google has been adding a number of AI-powered features to the default Messages app and Gmail app on Android, taking them leaps and bounds ahead of Apple’s software.

For instance, both Gmail and the Messages app on Android have had a draft feature for quite some time. Meanwhile, Google recently rolled out a new feature to Messages that allows users to delete RCS messages even from the recipient’s chat, similar to the ‘Delete for everyone’ feature on WhatsApp.