How to leave an iMessage group text on iOS

Quick show of hands: How many of you have gotten stuck in a multi-person iMessage session that caused your phone to go “buzz” every five seconds? 

Yep. We’ve all been there. In the old days, in order to escape the constant buzzing, you had to turn on iOS’s system-wide Do Not Disturb feature or switch off all notifications for the Messages app. Now, it’s easy enough to just leave the group chat or silence it.

Steps to Leave iMessage Group Chat on iPhone

1. Open the Messages app.
2. Tap the group conversation you want to leave.
3. Tap the group name at the top of the conversation.
4. Scroll down and tap Leave This Conversation or Delete and Block This Conversation.

Blocked conversations are moved to the Recently Deleted folder, where you can recover them.

Silence a group chat without leaving it

On the same screen you’ll see an option to Hide Alerts. Just toggle that off if you want to stay in the conversation but don’t want to get any more notifications.

You can also silence a Messages thread from the main Messages screen (group text or not):

1. Open the Messages app.
2. Locate the conversation you want to silence and swipe left…but not too far or you’ll delete it.
3. Tap the bell icon to silence that message thread.