Forum Thread: How to Get Back SMS Forwarding on Your iPhone in iOS 8.2

The ability to forward SMS messages from an iPhone to another number was seemingly "removed" with the iOS 8.2 update. I say "removed" because it's actually not removed, just playing hide and seek.

Note: I am not referring to the "Text Message Forwarding" option, which is for sending and receiving text messages via your iPhone from another iOS or Mac device using the same Apple ID. What I am referring to is simply forwarding texts on your iPhone to another person's phone.

I mostly use SMS forwarding to report spam to my carrier, which helps me feel better even though it probably doesn't help anything.

To forward an SMS, you press and hold on the message you want to forward, select "More" from the pop-up menu, and then hit the arrow icon in the bottom right to forward the message. However, after updating to iOS 8.2, that option was gone for me, and the "Send" button was still there.

(1) Selecting "More" should bring up the forward option. (2) But it doesn't anymore.

If you have this problem too, the solution is really simply—just restart your device. After a quick reboot, the arrow icon was back in its place and I was able to forward spam to my carrier again.

(1) After restarting, the arrow icon was back. (2) And was able to forward spam.

Did you have this issue, too? It could've been an isolate incident, but I confirmed with another device, so maybe it's happening to a lot of you.

2 Responses

Thanks for the tip. I had same issue of not bring able to forward SMS text messages. The "arrow" to forward mysteriously disappered. I have iPhone 5s running iOS version 8.3. Rebooting resolved the problem.

Had the same issue. Using iPhone 5 with ios 8.4.1. The reboot fixed it. Awesome, thanks!

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