Don’t you sometimes wish you could just send scheduled texts?

Say you work for a business and want to text out a promotion to your customers, and you want the text to go out at just the right time.

Or say it’s 12am and you think of something you need to text over to a family member or colleague.

But you don’t want to send a text at midnight.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to set up your text message and schedule it to send at the perfect time?

Well, good news!

You can send scheduled texts.

Here’s how to do it on your iPhone.

(If you have an Android phone, you can check out this article on how to schedule texts instead.)

Send Scheduled Texts on Your iPhone Via Shortcuts

The Shortcuts app on your iPhone can do all kinds of handy automatic things.

One of those things is to set up automated pre-filled texts. With this feature, you can designate a text message to send under certain conditions.

One of those conditions is “Time of Day.”

Here’s how the flow goes.

Step 1: Open Shortcuts

Step 2: Select “Automation”

This tab appears at the bottom of the Shortcuts app.

Step 3: Select “Create Personal Automation”

Step 4: Select “Time of Day”

Step 5: Choose What Time of Day You’d Like Your Message to Be Sent

You can select “sunrise,” “sunset,” or a specific time of day.

Step 6: Select How Often You’d Like Your Message to Repeat

You can select for your message to send daily, weekly or monthly.

(If you only want your message to go out once, you’ll just have to go in and delete the automation after it sends the first message.)

Then select “Next.”

Step 7: Select “Add Action”

Note that if you see “Send Message” displayed below, on the section of the screen that says “Next Action Suggestions,” you can click the “+” button there. Doing that will skip this step as well as the next.

Step 8: Search for “Send” to Find the “Send Message” Action

Step 9: Tap the “+” on the “Send Message” Action

Step 10: Select “Message” to Type Out Your Message Content

Hint: You can use one of the “variables” Apple suggests (displayed directly above your keypad), if any of them match your text’s purposes.

Step 11: Select “Recipients”

Step 12: Type Your Contacts’ Info or Tap “+” to Locate

Tap “Done” when you’re done selecting contacts.

Step 13: Select “Next”

Step 14: Choose Whether or Not You’d Like to “Ask Before Running”

“Ask Before Running” is automatically toggled “on.”

This means your phone will confirm with you before the message automatically sends.

If you’d like the message to go ahead and send without any confirmation on your end, you can toggle this option “off.”

If you toggle it “off,” you’ll also be able to toggle whether or not you’d like your phone to notify you whenever the message is sent (“Notify When Run”).

Deep breath.

Congrats! You’ve just scheduled an automated text.

Remember that if you only want to send the message one time, you’ll need to go in and delete the automation after the message sends.

Here’s how…

  • Go back to your Shortcuts app
  • Find the automation you created under the “Automation” tab
  • Swipe left and tap “Delete”

Send Scheduled Texts on Your iPhone Via Reminders

Although you can’t actually send scheduled texts via the Reminders app, you can set up a reminder with a pre-filled text message.

That way, all you would have to do when you're ready to send the message is copy and paste the message content, input the recipients, and click “Send.”

There are just a few steps to get this set up ahead of time.

Step 1: Go to Your Reminders App

Step 2: Select “+ New Reminder”

Step 3: Type in a Description

This description will just be for your future reference.

Step 4: Select “i”

Step 5: Select the “Notes” Field

Step 6: Type Out Your Message

In that “Notes” field, type out the message that you’d like to send.

Step 7: Tap on “Date”

Step 8: Select the Desired Date from the Calendar

See the previous screenshot.

Step 9: Tap the “Time” Toggle

Step 10: Scroll to the Desired Time

Scroll through the hour, minute, and AM/PM fields to select the desired time that you’d like to receive the reminder to send your message.

Step 11: Tap “Done”

You'll then get a reminder when it's time to send your message, with the message content already set up so that you can easily copy and paste it into a text message.

Send Scheduled Texts on Your iPhone Via 3rd-Party Apps

The 2 mentioned solutions above are essentially workarounds. So you may want to use a 3rd-party app that can send scheduled texts more conveniently.

Dr.Fone shares the top 10 SMS scheduling apps for Apple, including:

  • SMS Scheduler
  • Schedule SMS: Send it later
  • Text Later
  • Advance SMS Scheduler
  • SMS Scheduler (Text Later)
  • AutoText
  • Smart SMS TIMER
  • iSchedule
  • SMS Timing
  • Schemes

Or if you’re looking for more of a full-fledged SMS platform that you can use to send scheduled texts to groups of people, you can use tools like Mobile Text Alerts.

A texting platform is the best option if you’re sending texts for your business.

And SMS platforms like Mobile Text Alerts also come with mobile apps, so you can access them from your iPhone.

You can get 50 free messages to see for yourself how it works (no credit card required).

And that’s a wrap!

Now you’re ready to send scheduled texts from your iPhone like a champ.

Happy scheduling!