How To Unhide Messages On Iphone Ios 11

The Messages screen in iOS 13, iOS 12, and iOS 11 is busier than ever before, displaying a row of colorful icons and iMessage apps on the bottom of every conversation in Messages on iPhone and iPad. While some users will love the quick access to their gifs, message stickers and apps, not everyone is satisfied with having a row of brightly colored app icons and the app drawer showing up with their Message conversations, and many professional users have sought out a way to disable or remove the Messages app icons from the iOS communication client.

If you'd like to hide the Message app icons in iOS 13, iOS 11, or iOS 12 on an iPhone or iPad, you can do so with a little trick that hides the app drawer.

How to Hide the Messages App Icons in iOS 13, iOS 12, and iOS 11

Open Messages app in iOS if you have not done so already and open a message conversation thread

Tap the gray App Store icon button to hide the Messages app drawer *

Tap to hide the iMessage app drawer in iOS 11

The Messages app drawer and row of icons will stay hidden until it is revealed again by tapping the App Store icon again. Additionally, if you use an iMessage app or sticker, the Message dock row of icons will appear again, meaning you'll have to tap the icon to hide it again.

How to Show the Messages App Icon Drawer in iOS 11 and iOS 12

If you'd like to see and access the Message app drawer of icons, simply open a message thread then tap on the App Store icon to reveal the iMessage apps and stickers again.

Hide and show app icon drawer in Messages for iOS 11

* Note that some users have reported that tapping and then swiping down on the App Store icon is necessary to hide the iMessage app drawer. Whether or not the behavior is different per device is not entirely clear, but should you have problems hiding the iMessage apps row with the tap method try the press and swipe gesture instead.

This is a less than obvious method of hiding the feature, but like some other parts of modern iOS it's often a discovery process to learn how to perform a particular function that is discretely implemented. Many users have wandered around searching for an option to disable the app icon drawer in the Messages section of Settings, but there is no app drawer toggle available there, and instead the ability to hide and show the iMessage app drawer is entirely contained within the Messages app itself.

The Messages apps and icon drawer was introduced in iOS 11 and persists in iOS 12 and iOS 13 and later, so this is likely a permanent addition to the iOS Messages app for iPhone and iPad users, thus learning how to use, hide, and show the Messages icon app bar is probably helpful for many iOS device owners.

Thanks to the various readers who emailed or left comments, like Lisa, who asked "How do I get the apps off the bottom of my text screen. Who had that bright idea?" for the question and tip idea!