---
title: "What Is Notification previews on iPhone? Meaning and Settings"
description: "Notification previews are the message text shown in iPhone notifications. Set Show Previews to Never or When Unlocked to keep it off your Lock Screen."
url: https://www.vaultforyou.app/glossary/notification-previews
lang: en
published: 2026-10-31
updated: 2026-10-31
author: "VaultForYou Editorial Team"
publisher: VaultForYou
---

# What is Notification previews?

Published 2026-10-31 - Updated 2026-10-31 - By VaultForYou Editorial Team - Checked against iOS 27 - Oct 31, 2026

## Quick answer

Notification previews are the part of an iPhone notification that shows content, such as the text of a message. You can choose Always, When Unlocked or Never for all apps or for each app in Settings -> Notifications -> Show Previews.

- **All apps:** Settings -> Notifications -> Show Previews.
- **One app:** Settings -> Notifications -> the app -> Show Previews.
- **Locked apps:** Their content never appears in previews.

**When Unlocked** shows content only after Face ID or Touch ID recognises you, which is the usual privacy setting. Not every app supports previews, and many messaging apps have their own preview switch inside the app as well.

## Frequently asked questions

### How do I hide message previews on my iPhone Lock Screen?

Go to Settings, Notifications, Show Previews and choose When Unlocked or Never. When Unlocked shows the message text only after your iPhone recognises you. You can also set this per app under Settings, Notifications, then the app's name.

## Sources

- [Apple Support: Change notification settings on iPhone](https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/change-notification-settings-iph7c3d96bab/ios)

## Guides that use this term

- [How to hide messages on iPhone: texts, iMessage and alerts](https://www.vaultforyou.app/blog/hide-messages-iphone)
- [iPhone privacy settings: where to find them and what to change](https://www.vaultforyou.app/blog/iphone-privacy-settings)

## Related terms

- [App lock (Require Face ID)](https://www.vaultforyou.app/glossary/app-lock)
- [Excluded Apps (Siri)](https://www.vaultforyou.app/glossary/excluded-apps)

## Browse

- [All glossary terms](https://www.vaultforyou.app/glossary)

---

Our guides are written and fact-checked by the VaultForYou team against Apple's own documentation. We make VaultForYou, a private vault app for iPhone. Download on the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/vaultforyou/id0000000000