With message preview enabled, anybody who glances at your screen can basically see who messaged you what. So, I like to turn off message previews for privacy reasons.
You can disable message preview entirely from the Notification Settings.
Also, you can selectively turn off message previews for individual messaging apps from their built-in settings.
Turn Off the Message Preview Entirely
If you don’t want message preview for any of your messaging applications, directly disable message preview from system settings.
Here’s how you can do so on Android and iPhone devices.
On Android
- Open the Settings application.
- Go to Notifications.
- Under Privacy, tap on Notifications on the lock screen. (The steps will differ a little depending on your Android version and device manufacturer.)
- Select Hide silent conversations and notifications.
On iPhone
- Launch Settings app.
- Go to Notifications and tap on Show previews.
- Select either one of the two options:
- When Unlocked: A message preview will only appear when your device is unlocked.
- Never: Message preview will not appear, whether the device is locked or unlocked.
- Exit Settings.
For Specific Messaging App
In some cases, you may want message previews only from specific apps. So, instead of entirely disabling message preview, you can disable message preview for some apps only.
As an example, I’ll show you how to disable message preview for the default messaging apps in Android and iPhone.
On Android
- Open the Google Messages app.
- Tap on the profile icon at the top right and select Message settings.
- Select Notifications.
- Go to Notification Categories and tap on Incoming messages.
- Tap on Lock Screen and select Hide content.
On iPhone
- Open the Settings app.
- Go to Notifications and tap on Messages.
- Tap on Show previews.
- Select either Never or When Unlocked.
Lastly, the steps to disable message previews for third-party messaging apps like Messenger, Slack, and Viber are pretty similar.
Simply open the specific messaging app, go to their Settings option, and look for the Notification settings. You can then disable message preview from there (Not every third-party messaging app may have this feature).
