When Apple released iOS 26 in September, the company gave your iPhone the ability to customize chat backgrounds in Messages. Chat backgrounds can add a fun, personal touch to messages. They can give you a visual identifier for each thread so you can easily tell if you’re messaging the right person or group, too.
With this new feature, you can use your own picture as a background, choose one of Apple’s premade backgrounds or, if you have an Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone, generate a unique background. Just know that if you add a background to a chat, everyone in that chat will see it. So choose carefully.
Here’s how to change a chat background in Messages on iOS 26, and what you need to know about the feature.
How to add and change a chat background in Messages
1. Open Messages.
2. Tap into a chat with a saved contact.
3. Tap either the person’s or group’s name
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