It is true that except in certain contexts and territories, SMS messages they have gone from being a method of communication to a channel for receiving order confirmations, codes for two-factor authentication, and advertising. Google tries to resurrect them and dethrone WhatsApp and company with its RCS messaging, but at the moment things do not seem to be progressing.
And speaking of these advertising messages, the same channel is also used to send us false information, such as the famous SMS that pretends to be a courier company, the Tax Agency or your own bank. Something that, by the way, also happens with calls, when telemarketing companies decide that they are not going to let you rest no matter how hard you try. But there is a way to avoid this, or to minimize it. we are going to tell you how you can block SPAM messages on both Android and iPhone. That is, on iOS.
Say goodbye to SPAM messages on your iPhone
We are going to start with the process to avoid the SPAM messages that we receive on the iPhone. This process was greatly simplified when Apple released iOS 13, as a native blocking of SPAM messages landed on board this version of the system. A block that is also as simple as the system filters all those messages that come to you from phone numbers that are not in your contacts.
In other words, if you add a number to your contacts it means that you know that person. Or at least, that you authorize her to write to you freely in the eyes of the system. Thus, the system to block SPAM in iOS 13 and newer versions goes through telling the system to apply this filter, and The process is fairly simple.
Activating the SPAM filter in iOS Messages
We have to go to the settings of the system, and from there locate the app Messages. Once inside, we locate the option ‘Filter strangers’ and nothing else will have to be done. Any SMS message that we receive from a number that is not in our contacts will be correspondingly stored in the spam folder. We summarize it for you:
- We go to the ‘Settings’ of the system.
- We locate the ‘Messages’ app.
- We activate ‘Filter strangers’.
We may also find that what we are looking for is block messages from a known sender, which we do not want to delete from our contacts. To do this we will have to open the corresponding message and once inside, click on ‘Report as spam’ and then on ‘Delete and report as spam’. As easy as that, user blocked.
- We open the message of who is bothering us.
- Click on ‘Report as spam’.
- Click on ‘Delete and report as spam’.
Avoiding SPAM SMS on Android
Enabling SPAM filtering in Google Messages for Android
We arrived at the Android territory and here things get a bit complicated because although the Google Messages app is usually the default to manage SMS messaging, there are others that we can install and replace the first. Or maybe we even have a mobile that does not have Messages installed, like a Huawei catalog mobile. As we said, things get a bit complicated.
So let’s start with what to activate in Google Messages to deal with SPAM, although the app itself already has an integrated filter that does a good part of the work. It is similar to the case of the iPhone, except that in Google Messages the option is active by default, so the app itself already warns us, with each SMS, that it may be SPAM if the contact is not in our agenda. If it is not activated, we will open Google Messages, we will click on the three points, we will enter ‘Spam and blocked’ and we will activate ‘Enable protection against SPAM’.
- We open the Messages app
- Click on the three vertical points
- Click on ‘Spam and blocked’
- We activate ‘Enable protection against SPAM’
In case we are not using the Google app of our own free will or because we do not have it installed, We are going to recommend a couple of apps whose function is, precisely, to filter the arrival of SMS messages to the system and block everything that is garbage or contains information that could harm us. Yes, SPAM and fraud attempts are charged.
- Key Messages: The first app we recommend is Key Messages. With this app we manage to integrate an automated security filter into our system that will be in charge of dealing with SPAM and it also has a blacklist that we can create with each number that manages to bypass its filters.
Key Messages
- Call and SMS Blocker: Another highly recommended app that will not only take care of filtering SPAM messages but will do the same with calls. In the same way as in ‘Key Messages’, in ‘Call and SMS Blocker’ we also have automatic filtering and the possibility of creating our own list of blocked numbers.
