Widget for Messages utilizes the Shortcuts app and Shortcuts automations to display messages from the Messages app onto a widget on the Home Screen. The widget will display only the most recent message from each user; tapping the message on the widget will take you to the conversation in the Messages app. Please review the limitations listed below before purchasing the app. This app may not suit your needs due to these limitations.
Important Note: Please review the limitations of the app found within this description below or at the support URL listed below prior to purchasing, as the app may not be suitable for your needs. The app does not collect or provide me or anyone else any of your message, contacts or personal contact information in any way. The app requires such information in order to display your conversation data into the widget and to properly work with group conversations.
Features
- Small, medium, and large widgets.
- Open directly to a chat conversation within the Messages app just by tapping on the conversation in the widget.
- Badge that displays the unread messages count that can be toggled on/off.
- Push Notifications for messages to open directly to the conversation.
- Push Notifications can be on a per-message basis, selectable in the three dots on the conversation row.
- Group Message support
- Display only messages received from different contact groups.
- Ties directly into the Contacts app to allow for modifying and creating groups.
- Support for international numbers using native iOS APIs.
- Support for short codes that the companies and the lame spammers use.
- Support for email addresses used for iMessages.
- Automatically delete specific or all messages after opening it and it is marked as read.
- Supports StandBy widgets.
- Support for over 100 countries/regions and the following languages
English
Spanish
German
French
Japanese
Arabic
Portuguese
Italian
Russian
Korean
Chinese Simplified
Limitations
*The limitations listed below are due to system level features, functions, or APIs that my app does not have access to or are required in the currently released Apple Operating Systems*
- Photos and Videos within messages will not display in the widget or the app.
- One-word messages likely won’t come through as the message received trigger relies on having at least one space in the message.
- The Widget for Messages app must open first in order to open to the conversation in the Messages app when tapping a message on the widget.
- There’s no easy way to detect group messages, but I’ve tried my best with a workaround; therefore, it may or may not work correctly. Apple does not provide an API to achieve this.
- Shortcuts will always display a notification when the automation runs; Apple does not offer a toggle to disable it for this automation trigger.
- Reading a message in the Messages app without going through the widget does not mark the message read in the Widget for Messages app as this is not possible.
- Conversations of group chats with custom group names aren’t able to be opened directly as there is no API to do so.