Stop a text from sending by quickly turning on Airplane Mode

If you experience immediate regret after hitting Send on a text message on your iPhone, OS X Daily found a clever trick to stop the message from being delivered. Whether you suddenly discovered that you were texting the wrong person or just sending an embarrassing text to the right person, you can stop the message from reaching its recipient if you act fast.

The trick is this: while your text message is in the process of being sent — that is, when the Sending message is still shown at the top of the Messages app along with the blue status bar creeping its way across the screen — quickly swipe up from the bottom of the screen to call up the Control Center and tap the Airplane button to put your iPhone into Airplane Mode. After a few seconds, you’ll get a notification that your message failed to send, and when you exit Airplane Mode, the text message will not resume sending but will show up as Not Delivered.

I was not quick enough to cancel a text message unless it included a photo or a video, but at least this trick might help prevent potentially embarrassing multimedia text exchanges. And I also found that it was quicker to close the Messages app before swiping up to get to the Control Center. When I tried to swipe up with Messages still open, my iPhone registered my frantic swipes as me tapping on the spacebar or another key in the bottom row of the keyboard on Messages.