Apple Messages is finally getting a feature it’s needed for years in iOS 26
- Draft messages are much easier to find in iOS 26
- Leaked code also suggests iOS 26 will bring a huge security boost
- Apple is apparently testing end-to-end encryption for RCS messages
How many times have you started to write a text in iOS’s Messages app and then left it for later, only to forget who you were messaging and what you were saying a few hours down the line?
It’s a common occurrence, but iOS 26 includes a new feature that will make it much easier to find those unfinished texts – and it’s almost shocking Apple hasn’t implemented it sooner.
If you’re running the iOS 26 public beta, you’ll now be able to filter your texts by draft status. All you need to do is open the messages app, tap the hamburger menu in the top-right corner, then select Drafts under the Filter By header. Your Messages inbox will now show only draft texts and nothing else, saving you a bunch of time tapping into all your existing threads in a vain attempt to find the elusive draft.
There are filters for other situations, too. If you’ve scheduled messages for another time, you’ll see a Send Later filter, for example, while there’s an Unread filter for any message you haven’t gotten around to reading yet.
Note that these filters only show up if there is a relevant message to filter. If you don’t have any drafts, for example, you won’t see the Drafts filter. And these filters work regardless of whether you’re using Apple’s iPhone-to-iPhone iMessage standard or RCS/SMS messages sent to Android devices. Blue bubbles or green bubbles, it works.
Stronger security
Speaking of RCS messages, iOS 26 might include a significant security boost when it comes to sending texts between an iPhone and an Android device, and it could address a flaw that’s gone unaddressed for too long.
According to Apple code reportedly discovered by Android Authority, iOS 26 will implement end-to-end encryption when sending messages using the RCS protocol between iOS and Android. Although you can currently send RCS messages between these two platforms (something that Apple finally brought about in iOS 18), the standard is not end-to-end encrypted. While iMessage has featured this security technology for years, the GSM Association (GSMA) – which implements and updates RCS – has taken a while to add this toughened-up encryption.
That changed in March of 2025, when the GSMA said end-to-end encryption would be added to RCS. And although Apple has previously outlined that end-to-end encryption would be coming to RCS on the iPhone in “future software updates,” it didn’t set a date for the change.
Yet Android Authority says it’s seen code that includes the string “GisRCSEncryptionEnabled,” which suggests that RCS encryption is undergoing internal testing at Apple. Further code snippets also include the string “mls-rcs-server,” which could imply Apple is assessing the MLS encryption that Google has added to Google Messages.
Despite the promising signs, there’s no guarantee that iOS 26 will implement RCS encryption. Apple took a long time to implement RCS in the first place – partly due to its weaker security compared to iMessage – and it might simply be testing its updated functionality. But the fact that these strings are present in iOS 26 code gives us hope that RCS encryption could be on the way, making cross-platform texting safer for iOS and Android users alike.
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