You may have noticed that your Message alerts sound twice: once when you get the message and again two minutes later, if you haven't opened it yet. If this isn’t your cup of tea, there’s an easy way to change it. Repeat Alerts can be found and changed in the Settings app. You can choose to set repeat message alerts from never all the way up to 10 times. Here’s how to turn off repeat message notifications.

Why You'll Love This Tip:

Change the default double notification for text messages by changing it to chime only once.
Avoid confusion about how many texts you've received.

How to Turn Off 2 Minute Text

System Requirements:

This tip was performed on an iPhone running iOS 17 or later. Find out how to update to iOS 17.

The reason why your iPhone notifies you twice is because an unread text will make a text noise two minutes after it was received. If you like tips about using your iPhone, be sure to sign up for our free Tip of the Day!

On your iPhone, open Settings.
Tap Notifications.
Scroll down and tap Messages.
Tap Customize Notifications.
Tap Repeat Alerts.
From here, select how many times you'd like your iPhone to alert you about unread messages.

Now, you’ll receive a single notification for incoming text messages. If you’re on the other end of the notification preference spectrum, you can also select twice, 3 Times, 5 Times, and 10 Times, with all alerts repeating in two-minute intervals.