Modern smartphone operating systems, including Apple's iOS and Google's Android, have introduced increasingly aggressive SMS filtering features designed to protect users from spam and unwanted messages. While well-intentioned, these filters can intercept legitimate messages sent from business platforms like PracSuite, causing appointment reminders, booking confirmations, and other patient communications to be silently redirected away from the main inbox.
If patients are telling you they haven't received your SMS messages, the messages themselves have most likely been delivered successfully, they're just not where your patient expects to find them.
This article covers where to look on iPhone (iOS 26) and Android devices, and what patients can do to ensure future messages from your practice arrive in their main inbox.
iPhone
The steps below apply to iPhones running iOS 26.
In the Messages app, select the filter icon in the top right corner.
This will display categories for Unknown Senders and Spam. The patient should check both of these areas for the messages you've sent from PracSuite.
Within the message thread, the patient will have the option to Mark as Known so that the filtering rules are not applied.
On their iPhone, the patient can go to Settings > Messages and review the settings that have that control whether they receive notifications for Unknown Senders.
Disabling Screen Unknown Senders and Filter Spam can minimise messages from being silently hidden and moved out of the main inbox.
Further instructions https://support.apple.com/en-au/guide/iphone/iph203ab0be4/ios
Android
The below steps apply to Android devices using the Google Messages app, which is the default messaging app on most Android phones.
In the Google Messages app, tap on your profile icon in the top right corner and select Spam & blocked.
This will display any messages that have been automatically filtered. The patient should check here for messages sent from PracSuite.
Within the message thread, the patient can tap the three-dot menu and select Not spam to move the conversation back to the main inbox and prevent future messages from the same sender being filtered.
The patient can also manage filtering settings by opening Google Messages, tapping their profile icon, then going to Messages settings > Spam protection. Disabling spam protection here will prevent messages from being automatically redirected away from the main inbox.