iOS 26 has political groups panicking over fundraising. The truth might surprise them

Last week, Punchbowl News published an internal memo the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) sent to its members, warning that Apple’s upcoming iOS 26 operating system for the iPhone could cost the organization $25 million in donations. The NRSC is the Republicans’ primary Senatorial fundraising arm. The memo further said the changes could cost the greater GOP half a billion dollars in lost political donations.

The change? A new “aggressive message filtering” feature, according to the NRSC memo, that Apple is introducing in iOS 26’s Messages app, which handles both iMessages and regular SMS text messages. This feature will filter texts from unknown senders—like the kind the NRSC sends out to phones across the country to raise political donations—into a siloed inbox where the iPhone user won’t see or be notified of the message.

The thing is, this “aggressive message filtering” feature is nothing new in iOS, and the changes Apple is making to it in iOS 26 actually benefit both the iPhone user and, potentially, the sender of the message themself. Still, given the confusion surrounding it, I decided to go to the source—Apple—to see how the feature in iOS 26 actually works.

The ‘new’ iOS 26 ‘unknown senders’ filter has existed since iOS 13

The supposedly new “unknown senders” filter in iOS 26, which has the NRSC so concerned, actually exists on all iPhones running iOS 18 today. Apple confirmed to me that the feature has existed in a similar form on all iPhones going back to iOS 13, which first shipped in 2019.

In iOS 18 and earlier, that feature is called “Filter Unknown Senders” and is off by default, meaning you have to opt into it, which is why so few people realize it currently exists. You can check it out on your iPhone running iOS 18 right now by going to the Settings app, then tapping Apps, and then Messages. You’ll find the toggle, which is off by default, under the “Message Filtering” header.

If you toggle “Filter Unknown Senders” on in iOS 13 through iOS 18, your iPhone will move any message that it thinks is from an unknown sender to a dedicated “Unknown Senders” inbox in the Messages app. Texts filtered into this inbox won’t show up in your main “Known” messages thread.

So, how does your iPhone currently decide what an “unknown sender” is? Apple told me it uses two criteria only: if the text is from someone who is not saved in your Contacts app and is also from a sender that you have not replied to before, the message will be siloed into the “Unknown Senders” inbox.

In iOS 26, this feature is getting an update—but it will give iPhone users increased notification of, and easier access to, their filtered messages. At the same time, it will increase the chances of the unknown sender getting their message read.

How iOS 26’s ‘unknown senders’ text message filter actually works

In iOS 26, the “unknown senders” text message filter is getting an update, but it’s unlikely to cost the NRSC or any other political fundraising groups any donations.

Apple told me that in iOS 26, the “Filter Unknown Senders” toggle is being renamed to “Screen Unknown Senders.” The company also confirmed that the two criteria your iPhone uses to determine if a text is from an unknown sender (the sender is not in your contacts and you haven’t replied to the sender before) are not changing.

What is changing is the visibility of the “Unknown Senders” inbox and the messages it contains. Apple confirmed to me that the idea behind the changes is to make sure that an iPhone user can more easily access filtered messages from unknown senders and also more easily see when they have received a text that has been filtered into the “Unknown Senders” inbox.

In iOS 26, users can quickly access the “Unknown Senders” inbox by tapping a new filters button, always visible in the top-right corner of the iOS 26 Messages app. Tapping this button brings up a menu that lets them quickly access their “Unknown Senders” inbox.

Apple is taking it a step further to make it easier for users to access the “Unknown Senders” inbox while still retaining its core feature of keeping your primary inbox tidy. Now in iOS 26, when you get a new text from an unknown sender that is filtered into the “Unknown Senders” inbox, the filter button at the top of the Messages app will display a blue badge with the total number of new texts you’ve received from unknown senders.

This means that in iOS 26, Apple is making it even easier for a user to tell they have new texts from an unknown sender, which means senders of those texts have a better chance of the iPhone user seeing them than they did in iOS 18.

Apple knows texts from all unknown senders aren’t always unwanted

Apple recognizes that not all texts from unknown senders are malicious, and these changes in iOS 26 are the company’s efforts to make it easier for users to notice and access them while still ensuring a barrage of unknown texts doesn’t overwhelm the user’s primary messages inbox.

It’s also important to note that Apple confirmed to me that the revamped “Screen Unknown Senders” feature in iOS 26 remains off by default. Users still need to opt-in to it (if they haven’t already in iOS 18). In other words, just because someone installs iOS 26 on their iPhone, texts from the NRSC or other political fundraising groups won’t be automatically filtered out.

What this means is that Apple’s iOS 26 changes this fall won’t suddenly cost political fundraising organizations millions in donations, just as iOS 18’s filtering features don’t today. The only thing Apple is guilty of is not spending enough time during its WWDC keynote on the iOS 26 “Screen Unknown Senders” feature modification to explain what is actually changing—and what is staying the same.

https://www.fastcompany.com/91381587/ios-26-political-groups-panicking-over-fundraising-truth-might-surprise-them?partner=rss&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss+fastcompany&utm_content=rss