Directly mentioning someone in a group iMessage chat is a great way to make sure they see your message, especially when things are busy. Introduced in iOS 14, this feature helps highlight specific people in both group and individual conversations.
Who Can You Mention?
You can mention anyone who’s already part of the conversation. In one-on-one chats, that’s just the person you’re talking to. In group chats, it can be any member. You can’t tag someone who isn’t in the chat yet - you’d need to add them first.
While the tagging feature works regardless of the recipient’s iOS version, people on older iOS versions (pre-iOS 14) won’t see the special formatting or receive mention notifications. To them, it’ll look like normal text, which might be confusing.
How to Mention Someone
There are a couple of ways to tag someone, and both are quite straightforward.
Method 1: Using the “@” Symbol
This is generally the quickest method. Type “@” followed by their name (first, last, or full). After you enter a space, the “@” symbol will disappear, and their name will turn bold and blue, showing they’ve been tagged.
If there are multiple contacts with the same name, you’ll be prompted to pick the right person. Just tap the correct contact.
Method 2: Typing the Name Directly
You can also mention someone by simply typing their name (first, last, or full) as it appears in your contacts. As you finish typing, it’ll become grayed out.
Tap the grayed-out name (or anywhere in the text field) and you’ll see their contact info. Click on it to confirm, and their name will change to bold and blue, indicating a successful mention.
If you have multiple contacts with the same name, you will see a list, and you just need to tap the correct one.
Note: If a contact’s name contains an emoji, tagging might not work (this has been reported since iOS 14.2). This might be fixed in later updates.
What Happens After You Tag Someone?
When you mention someone, their name will show up in bold blue text for everyone in the chat.
If the person has the chat open, they’ll see their name highlighted. If they don’t, they may get a notification about being mentioned, even if they’ve muted the conversation. Clicking the notification will take them straight to the message where they were tagged, regardless of other unread messages. The message bubble will briefly be highlighted in dark gray.
Whether someone gets a mention notification is based on their settings. If they’ve disabled notifications for Messages or have Do Not Disturb active, they won’t be notified. Other people in the chat just see the mentioned name in bold blue but don’t receive special notifications.
How to Turn Off Mention Notifications
While you can’t stop others from mentioning you, you can control if you receive mention notifications. You can turn them off for muted conversations if you prefer not to be alerted.
- Open the Settings app on your iPhone, then scroll down to Messages.
- In the Messages settings, go to the Mentions section and turn off Notify Me.
Note: You can only disable mention notifications if you have muted the conversation.
Using mentions is a great way to make sure important messages get to the right people in busy group chats. You can even tag multiple people at once to grab several people’s attention simultaneously.