When setting up your phone, you probably used your real name and linked your phone to your personal email address. What you didn’t realize is that in doing so, your phone can be traced back to you.
Seeing that online privacy is quite the thing nowadays, we can imagine you’re wondering how to text anonymously. Fortunately, we have a few tricks up our sleeves for Android and iPhone users!
How to hide your number when texting on iPhone?
Do you want to text message someone, but don’t want this person to have your actual phone number? Or do you want to text discreetly, so it’s guaranteed that no one but the two of you can access your messages?
There are loads of reasons why you wouldn’t want your personal phone number to be out in the open. The thing is, every smartphone is wired to display your phone number when you’re calling or texting someone. If you want to text anonymously, you have to hide your caller ID. The person you’re texting will then see that they’re being texted by a ‘private number’.
Are you using an iPhone? Then you can change the settings of your Caller ID directly from your phone, in a pretty straightforward way.
Here are the steps how to hide your phone number when texting on iPhone:
- Open the settings on your iPhone.
- Select ‘Phone’.
- Select ‘Show my Caller ID’.
- Toggle ‘Show my Caller ID’ so the option is turned off.
How to hide your number when texting on Android?
Comparable to an iPhone, hiding your Caller ID in Android is fairly simple as well. However, there are multiple versions of Android available, so chances are your setting menu will work slightly differently from our example. No worries, though; if you check the right keywords, you will get there anyway.
Follow these steps to hide your number when texting on Android:
- Open the phone app on your phone. It’s the app you use to make a call, and it looks like a green square with a phone in it.
- Tap on the three dots in the top right corner.
- Select ‘Settings’.
- Open ‘Call Settings’.
- Select the SIM card you’re using. Do you only use one SIM card on your phone? Then skip this step.
- Go to ‘Additional Settings’.
- Tap on ‘Caller ID’.
- Select ‘Hide number.’
How to hide your number on WhatsApp?
When you’re registering for WhatsApp, you’re required to fill in your phone number to log in to the service. Not everyone is too happy with that. Luckily, there is a trick if you want to hide your number from your contact list and remain anonymous while using WhatsApp.
Here’s a guide on how to hide your phone number on WhatsApp:
- Get an alternate phone number that you don’t intend to share with everyone.
- Uninstall WhatsApp from your device.
- Remove your old SIM card and place it in another phone that can receive SMS.
- Insert your new SIM card into your phone.
- Reinstall WhatsApp and start your registration.
- You will be asked to enter a valid phone number. Instead of entering the new one, you enter the old one.
- WhatsApp will send an OTP (one-time password) to your old SIM card. You can use that OTP to verify. From that moment on, you can use WhatsApp with your old phone number, while your new number will be invisible to your contact list.
Would you like to find out who has blocked you on WhatsApp? We've written an in-depth WhatsApp guide on this for you.
Frequently asked questions about hiding your number when texting
Can you hide your number when texting?
You can hide your phone number by turning off the caller ID option on your smartphone or to hide it (depending on your phone type). But everything you send on your own phone is not 100% guaranteed to be anonymous.
Another option to hide your number when texting, is to send a text with a seperate prepaid SIM card. This is a more laborious option and then there is still a chance that your phone number is visible to the recipient.
How can you successfully hide your number when texting? A completely safe alternative is to send an anonymous text message via an anonymous messaging service, such as this website. Your privacy, message delivery, and anonimity are 100% guaranteed and you are all set for only $2.99. We are the most widely used anonymous texting service.