I’m terrible for not replying to messages straight away and quite often it’s because I’ve read the message and then forgotten to reply when I get home.

If I leave a message as unread I find it much easier to remember to reply.

And now with iOS 16 you can mark a message as unread, even when you’ve seen it. This is how.

So this message here, a reminder to get some shopping later, is one that I’ve now read.

I’ve opened that message, so if I go back to the inbox there’s no blue dot and the badge on the icon is gone.

That means I’m pretty likely to forget the shopping and I’ll be in trouble with my partner!

So what we’re going to do is go back to the main Messages inbox and then we’re going to swipe to the right and press that new button.

This will mark the messages unread on my device.

So I’ll get the blue dot back in the corner and the app icon will have a badge again.

That means I know I’ve got a message to look at later on and hopefully I won’t forget.

I should mention quickly that this also works with pinned contacts even though you can’t swipe to the right.

So when I pin this messaging thread all I have to do is tap and hold on the pinned contact and then I can press Mark As Unread from there as well.

This time as well as the blue dot you get the preview of the last message that shows up which is an even better reminder.