In short
- What it is: an SMS filter for iPhone built on Apple's official Message Filter extension (IdentityLookup).
- Where it runs: entirely on the phone. Apple gives filter extensions no network access, and AntiSpam declares no server for its filter. No account, no tracking.
- Reporting: optional. You can report a missed spam text or a wrongly filtered one from Messages; the text is masked on your phone before it is sent (how it works).
- What it moves to Spam: scam and phishing texts, gambling promotions, bulk marketing and political texts, dating and job bait.
- What it protects: one-time codes, bank and card alerts, delivery updates, appointment reminders, short personal texts and senders you allow are matched by protective rules before anything is scored.
- Measured: Turkish, October 2026, 13,117 real texts: 98% precision, 96% recall. English, October 2026, 28,675 texts from public research datasets: 99.2% precision, 82.6% recall (method).
- Price: monthly, yearly or lifetime; the monthly plan starts with a free month. From $2.99 a month in the US and £1.99 in the UK (all prices). Sold in Türkiye, the US, the UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
- Made by: Okan Can Bolayır, an independent developer in Türkiye. Support: iletisim@smsengellemeapp.com.
What it blocks
AntiSpam looks at every SMS that iOS hands to the filter and moves these kinds of texts to the Spam folder (called Junk on older iOS versions):
- Scams and phishing: fake parcel and customs fees, toll and parking fine notices, "your account has been suspended" and "unusual sign-in" lures, tax refunds, fake bank or card alerts that ask you to tap a link, "is this you?" messages.
- Bait: part-time job offers, crypto and investment tips, dating invitations, prize and gift-card wins.
- Gambling: casino, betting and slot promotions, including the disguised spellings spammers use to dodge keyword filters.
- Bulk marketing and political texts from senders you never gave your number to. Since version 1.4, advertising counts as spam.
- Link tricks: URL shorteners, lookalike domains, newly registered or throwaway top-level domains, and words broken up with symbols or digits ("b*nus", "fr3e", "c a s i n o").
AntiSpam decides only spam or not spam. It doesn't sort your inbox into Transactions and Promotions folders; iOS does that on its own when you turn on its filters.
What it protects
Missing a code or a bank alert is worse than seeing one more spam text. So a short list of protective rules runs before any scoring, and a match wins:
- Verification and one-time codes, including the
@domain #codeformat many services use. - Bank and card transaction alerts: purchases, transfers, balances, declined payments.
- Delivery and parcel updates from carriers and retailers, and appointment and reminder texts from clinics, schools, airlines and booking sites, as long as they don't also carry the hallmarks of a scam (a link shortener, a lookalike domain or a prize or payment lure).
- Short personal texts from ordinary mobile numbers.
- Senders you add to the allowed list inside the app.
Messages from people in your Contacts never reach any filter app; iOS keeps them out of the pipeline entirely. The rules aren't perfect. In the October 2026 Turkish measurement, 7 of 13,117 real texts in these protected groups were misclassified. In the English test, 5 of 937 one-time codes, 30 of 3,347 bank alerts and 34 of 504 delivery notices were wrongly filtered; the details are on the accuracy page.
How it decides
- Protective rules first. Codes, bank alerts, deliveries, reminders and personal texts are shown unfiltered (see above).
- Sender and link analysis. Alphanumeric sender names, short codes and ordinary mobile numbers are treated differently; every link is checked for shorteners, lookalike domains and suspicious top-level domains.
- Vocabulary rules. Gambling, phishing, job and investment bait and bulk-marketing patterns, after the text is normalised so that disguised spellings are read as the words they imitate.
- A small on-device model for the grey zone. A hashed logistic-regression model of about half a megabyte scores texts the rules can't settle. The model file stores weights only: no word list and no message text. Digit strings are never used as features, so codes and amounts can't teach it anything.
- Rule updates. About once a day the app downloads a small signed rules file from our own site, so fixes reach your phone without waiting for an app update. Nothing about your texts is uploaded.
A decision takes a few milliseconds and happens inside Apple's extension, which has no access to your other apps, your contacts or your message history.
Privacy
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Where is the text analysed? | On your iPhone, inside Apple's Message Filter extension. Apple states that filter extensions can't access the network directly; a server can only be involved if the developer declares one, and AntiSpam declares none for its filter. |
| Is message content stored or sent anywhere? | Not by the filter. The extension returns a single verdict to iOS and keeps nothing. |
| What if I report a text? | Only then does a text leave your phone, and it is masked on the phone first: codes, amounts, phone, card and account numbers, email addresses and names in greetings are hidden. You see the masked text before sending, and nothing goes until you tap Done. The report is stored in the EU without your IP address, a device ID or anything else that identifies you, read only by the developer to improve the filter, and deleted after 12 months. |
| Do I need an account? | No. |
| What data does the app collect? | According to its privacy manifests: purchase history and an anonymous device identifier, used only to run your subscription (through the Adapty payments SDK), and the masked texts you choose to report. Not linked to your identity, not used for tracking. No analytics or advertising SDKs. |
| Does it read my contacts? | No. iOS simply doesn't pass messages from your contacts to any filter. |
| Policy | Privacy policy (what a report contains, what the subscription service receives, your rights) · Terms of use |
Setup on iOS 26 and iOS 27
- Install AntiSpam from the App Store, open it and choose a plan. The monthly plan starts with a free month.
- Open Settings → Apps → Messages and scroll down to the Unknown Senders section. On iOS 27 you can also get there from Messages: tap the Filters button, then Manage Filtering.
- Turn on Screen Unknown Senders. (On iOS 17 and 18 the switch is called Filter Unknown Senders.)
- Tap Allow Notifications. Keep Verification Codes and Personal on, and turn on Transactions so bank, delivery and order texts from unknown numbers still notify you and show up in your Messages list for 12 hours. Leave Promotions off.
- Tap Text Message Filter and select AntiSpam.
- Turn on Filter Spam.
- Restart the iPhone once. iOS can take a while to activate a new filter, and filtering applies to messages that arrive from then on; old messages aren't re-scanned.
With Screen Unknown Senders on, iOS also moves texts from numbers it doesn't know to an Unknown Senders list and hides their notifications, except for the types you allow. Our guide to Screen Unknown Senders on iOS 26 explains each notification type and how to mark a sender as known.
Price
The monthly plan starts with a free month. The yearly plan and the lifetime purchase have no trial.
| Store | Monthly (first month free) | Yearly | Lifetime (one payment) |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | $2.99 | $12.99 | $24.99 |
| United Kingdom | £1.99 | £9.99 | £19.99 |
| Ireland | €1.99 | €9.99 | €19.99 |
| Canada | C$1.99 | C$14.99 | C$27.99 |
| Australia | A$2.99 | A$17.99 | A$34.99 |
| New Zealand | NZ$3.49 | NZ$17.99 | NZ$34.99 |
| Türkiye | 49,99 TL | 499,99 TL | see App Store |
AntiSpam is sold only in these seven countries. Subscriptions renew automatically and can be cancelled any time in Settings → Apple Account → Subscriptions. If a renewal fails, filtering keeps working for 7 days.
Limits you should know about
- iPhone only. SMS filtering is an iPhone feature; there is no Android, iPad or Mac version.
- Apple decides what reaches the filter. Only SMS and MMS (and, on recent iOS versions, RCS) from senders who aren't in your Contacts. Apple's own documentation adds that text message filtering doesn't apply to any sender you have replied to three times or more. iMessage, WhatsApp and other chat apps are out of scope for every SMS filter.
- One filter at a time. iOS lets you enable one third-party SMS filter. Choosing AntiSpam replaces any other filter app you were using.
- English filtering is new in 2.0. It was measured on public research datasets rather than on years of real texts, as the Turkish engine was, and the test has no bank or service texts from the US, UK or Australia yet. It catches about 83 of 100 spam texts in that test, so expect some misses, especially on brand-new scam templates. Check the Spam folder now and then and report mistakes.
- No call blocking, no caller ID. AntiSpam does one thing: text messages.
- Spam or not spam only. AntiSpam doesn't sort texts into Transactions and Promotions.
- One developer. Support is by email and usually answered within a few days.
Guides
Frequently asked questions
Does AntiSpam read my messages or send them to a server?
AntiSpam analyses each text inside Apple's Message Filter extension on your iPhone. Apple runs these extensions without network access, and AntiSpam doesn't declare a server for them to talk to, so the filter can't send your texts anywhere. A text leaves the phone only if you report it yourself, and it is masked on the phone first. There is no account and no tracking.
Will it block my verification codes or bank texts?
Rarely. One-time codes, bank and card transaction alerts, delivery updates, appointment reminders and short personal texts are matched by protective rules that run before anything is scored. In the October 2026 test on 13,117 real Turkish texts, 7 messages in these protected groups were misclassified. In the English test, which uses public data from an inbox in India, 5 of 937 one-time codes and 30 of 3,347 bank alerts were wrongly filtered.
What does AntiSpam block?
Scam and phishing texts (fake parcel fees, toll and fine notices, account-suspended and tax-refund lures, job and investment bait), gambling and casino promotions, bulk marketing and political texts, dating bait, and lures that hide behind link shorteners, lookalike domains or disguised words.
How accurate is it?
Turkish (October 2026, 13,117 real texts from 2,650 senders, sender-grouped cross-validation): 98% precision and 96% recall with advertising counted as spam. English (October 2026, 28,675 texts from public research datasets, model scored only on texts it never saw in training): 99.2% precision, 82.6% recall, 0.55% of legitimate texts wrongly filtered. Method and data are described on the accuracy page.
Why do some spam texts still get through?
iOS never passes messages from your contacts, from senders you have replied to three or more times, or from iMessage to any filter app. Screen Unknown Senders must be on and AntiSpam must be selected as the Text Message Filter. New scam templates can also slip through; AntiSpam updates its rules regularly.
Does it work with iMessage, WhatsApp or RCS?
Apple's filter extensions receive SMS and MMS from unknown senders, and on recent iOS versions RCS as well. iMessage, WhatsApp, Telegram and other chat apps are outside the scope of any iPhone SMS filter.
How much does it cost and how do I cancel?
The monthly plan starts with a free month. Monthly, yearly and lifetime prices: US $2.99, $12.99 and $24.99; UK £1.99, £9.99 and £19.99; Ireland €1.99, €9.99 and €19.99; Canada C$1.99, C$14.99 and C$27.99; Australia A$2.99, A$17.99 and A$34.99; New Zealand NZ$3.49, NZ$17.99 and NZ$34.99; Türkiye 49,99 TL a month or 499,99 TL a year. AntiSpam is sold only in these seven countries. Cancel in Settings → Apple Account → Subscriptions. If a renewal fails, filtering keeps working for 7 days.
Is there an Android version?
No. AntiSpam is built on Apple's Message Filter extension and is available for iPhone only (iOS 17 or later, including iOS 26 and iOS 27 and iPhone Duo).
How do I get back a message that was filtered by mistake?
In Messages, tap Filters and open the Spam folder (Junk on older iOS versions). Touch and hold the message and choose Not Spam, or add the sender to Contacts. You can also add the sender to the allowed list inside AntiSpam, and report the text with AntiSpam (see below) or email iletisim@smsengellemeapp.com so the rules can be fixed.
How do I report a text, and what gets sent?
A reported text is masked on your phone before anything is sent: codes, amounts, phone, card and account numbers, email addresses and names in greetings are hidden, while link domains stay readable. To turn reporting on, go to Settings → Apps → Phone → SMS/Call Reporting and choose AntiSpam (iOS lets you pick one app there). Then, in Messages, touch and hold a text and tap Report. AntiSpam asks whether it is spam and shows exactly what will be sent; nothing goes until you tap Done. Reports carry nothing that identifies you, are read only by the developer to improve the filter, and are deleted after 12 months. AntiSpam also adds the sender to your Always Block list (spam) or Always Allow list (not spam), so the next text from them is sorted right away.
Can I use AntiSpam together with Apple's own spam filtering?
Yes. Screen Unknown Senders is Apple's own feature and stays on; AntiSpam adds a content filter for the texts that reach the unknown-senders stage. iOS allows one third-party SMS filter to be active at a time.
Try AntiSpam for a month, free
iPhone, iOS 17 or later. Cancel any time.
Download on the App Store Questions or a wrongly filtered message? iletisim@smsengellemeapp.com · Machine-readable fact sheet: llms-full.txt