Don’t reply ‘STOP’ to unsolicited text messages. Do this instead

Spammers and malicious actors inundate us with a steady stream of text messages—often purporting to be from legitimate institutions or companies. Stanching this flow isn’t easy. Just as the unwanted emails we receive often tell us that we can simply unsubscribe via the “unsubscribe” link, these text messages explain that we can opt out of future communication simply by replying “STOP.” But that’s not always a safe way to deal with these unsolicited texts. Here’s why—and what you should do instead.

The problem with replying “STOP” to unsolicited text messages

We’ve all had it happen. We get a text message pitching us a product or asking for a political donation. At the end of the message, we are politely informed that we can opt out of future text communications either by replying “STOP” directly to the message itself, or texting “STOP” to another number they list.

That may be tempting. It ostensibly offers a quick solution to a legitimate annoyance. But it’s not always a good idea. That’s because replying to a spammy or malicious text in any way informs the sender that the phone number they used has a real person on the other end who is receiving their messages. Once they get this confirmation, a spammer is likely to send you more messages, not fewer.

Thankfully, today’s smartphones have powerful features built into them that can help you deal with nuisance texts like this, without needing to rely on the goodwill of the sender to remove you from their blast list.

Here’s what to do instead

It should be noted that sometimes it is safe to reply “STOP” or otherwise follow the instructions in a text message to instruct the sender to cease future communications. If the text message is from a legitimate institution, such as your doctor’s office, bank, school, or even political groups, they will often honor opt-out “STOP” requests.

But if the text is from a spammer, replying “STOP” is pretty much futile. Instead, your best course of action to ensure that you never hear from the sender again is to simply block the number they are texting you from.

The way you do this varies slightly depending on whether you have an iPhone or an Android phone. But here’s how to block a spam text message sender on both.

How to block a text message sender on iPhone

The default text message app on iPhone is called Messages. Whenever a spam text message lands in your app, here’s what to do:

1. Do not reply to it.
2. Instead, tap the sender’s phone number or name at the top of the text message thread.
3. On the next screen, tap Block Contact.
4. Tap Block Contact from the pop-up that appears.

If you’re getting too many spam text messages from multiple senders, iOS 26 users also have the option to enable a feature called Screen Unknown Senders, which filters all texts from unknown senders into their own inbox, segregating the messages from the ones you want to receive.

How to block a text message sender on Android

Google makes it really easy to block text message senders on Android as well. You can do this through the default messaging app on Android phones, called Messages. Here’s how:

1. Do not reply to it.
2. Open the Messages app.
3. Find the thread from the sender you want to block, then tap and hold it.
4. From the pop-up menu that appears, tap Block.
5. Depending on what flavor of Android you are using, you may also need to confirm the block by tapping OK.

Be careful who you give your phone number to

You’ll probably never be able to know for certain how a spammer got your phone number. Maybe they obtained it illegally, scraped it from the web, nabbed it from a data breach, or even bought it legally from a data broker.

Many of these things are outside of your control. But you can make your phone number harder to obtain by giving it out more sparingly, especially to questionable websites.

Meanwhile, when you get those spam text messages, think twice before replying “STOP.” Simply blocking the number is often a faster way to end the annoyance—and to protect your number from being flagged as belonging to a real person.