Which app did that message come from?
Look at any message and know at once whether it came by text, by WhatsApp or by email — and therefore where to go to answer it.
Messages arrive on a phone from three different systems, and they all land on the same screen, looking almost identical. That is the whole source of the confusion.
Key points
- Read the app name at the front of every notification
- Reply inside the app the message arrived in
- Tell a text, a WhatsApp message and an email apart by their habits
- Stop hunting for a message that was never in Messages to begin with
What to remember
- Always reply where it arrived. A WhatsApp message cannot be answered from Messages.
- Attachments and subject lines mean email. Check marks mean WhatsApp. Short and plain usually means a text.
- If you cannot find a message, you are almost certainly looking in the wrong app rather than having lost it.
Try this
Look at the notifications on your own phone right now and read the small gray word at the start of each one. Three or four different app names will be sitting there, and you will have been treating them all the same.
Practice: Which app did that message come from?. Your first lesson is free, with no account or card; the rest are part of a Lantern plan. Interactive lessons require JavaScript.