How to Unsubscribe From Automated Text Messages

How to Unsubscribe From Automated Text Messages
Messages notifications on an iPhone homescreen.
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If you have a smartphone, you’re probably getting text message alerts. Security codes from your bank, coupons from restaurants, messages from political campaigns—the list goes on and on. Here’s how to stop getting unwanted automated texts from an organization.

SMS messages don’t come with the kind of “Unsubscribe” links you’ll find in email newsletters. They often don’t include any instructions to unsubscribe. But, even if a text message doesn’t include any instructions for making it stop, there’s a practically universal way to unsubscribe.

To unsubscribe from automated text messages sent to your mobile phone number, just respond to the text with one of the following words:

  • STOP
  • UNSUBSCRIBE
  • END
  • QUIT
  • CANCEL

“Stop” and “Unsubscribe” are the most common commands.

These are fairly universal commands, and most automated systems will immediately let you know that you’ve been removed from the list and won’t get any more automated alert messages.

Unsubscribing from a text message list on an iPhone.

Note that many automated SMS services share “shortcode” numbers they send you messages from. Sending a message like “STOP” or “UNSUBSCRIBE” will remove you from the list that last texted you from the number. To remove yourself from all lists sharing that shortcode number, send this message instead:

  • STOP ALL

What About Spammy Texts?

The above tip works for legitimate automated text message lists that offer a way to opt out. Just like with spam emails, some people send spam text messages and won’t stop even if you ask nicely.

If someone keeps texting you anyway and provides no way to unsubscribe, you can always block text messages from a specific number on iPhone or Android.

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If you receive spammy text messages from multiple numbers. you can block spammy text messages on an iPhone or on an Android phone by installing a third-party app that automatically blocks a known list of spam text numbers. It’s like an email spam filter for your text messages.

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Lucila is a freelance writer and lifelong learner with an ongoing curiosity to study new things. She enjoys checking out the latest grammar books and writing about video games more than anything else. If she's not running through Colorado’s breathtaking landscape, she's indoors hidden away in her cozy game room trolling noobs and leveling up an RPG character. She is a Final Fantasy IX apologist (although she loves them all… except XV), coffee aficionado, and a bit of a health nut. Lucila graduated from Western Kentucky University with a B.A. in English Literature with a minor in Creative Writing.

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