# SmartFilter for SMS — user reviews > 61 indexed App Store user reviews of SmartFilter for SMS by Jacob Grant, rated 4.30/5 from 169 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/smartfilter-for-sms/id1271258894/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/smartfilter-for-sms/id1271258894.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 119 · 4★ 18 · 3★ 13 · 2★ 3 · 1★ 16 ## What do users think of SmartFilter for SMS? Overall sentiment: positive **Pros** - 👍 Filters spam effectively - 👍 Stops unwanted texts - 👍 Life-improving quiet - 👍 Set it and forget it - 👍 Filters by keywords - 👍 Works great - 👍 Life saver - 👍 Stops junk text - 👍 Best app tried - 👍 Works fantastic - 👍 Best message filter - 👍 Best and easiest - 👍 Great app, easy to use - 👍 Free and customizable - 👍 Works beautifully - 👍 Simple and useful - 👍 Changed my life - 👍 Best app, free - 👍 Works great, advanced options - 👍 Filters SMS email gateway - 👍 Amazing, filters life - 👍 Works perfectly - 👍 Finally found something - 👍 Stops unsolicited links - 👍 Filters political texts - 👍 Relief at last - 👍 Works like it claims - 👍 Catches spam texts - 👍 Unique spam filter - 👍 Does exactly what I need - 👍 Only app that worked - 👍 Love love love - 👍 Exactly what I wanted - 👍 Best thing ever - 👍 Wonderful app - 👍 Seems to work well - 👍 Great spam filter - 👍 Excellent - 👍 Working fine now - 👍 Just what I needed - 👍 Love the customization **Cons** - 🐛 Keyword filter not working - 🐛 Abandoned, old updates - 🐛 Keyword function stopped - 🐛 Letting through block words - 🐛 Keyword filter does not work - 🐛 Spam detection model not working - 🐛 Spam still shows notification - 🐛 ML not working - 🐛 Report SMS doesn't work - 🐛 Allow words filter not working - 🐛 Does not work at all - 🐛 Most likely selling number - 🐛 SmartFilter does not filter anything - 🐛 Broken in iOS 14.4? - 🐛 Spam still comes in **Commonly reported bugs** - Keyword blocking only sometimes works - Keyword function stopped working - Letting through texts with block words - Spam-detection model not working well - ML not working, legitimate messages filtered as spam - Allow Words filter not working - Report SMS doesn't work - Spam still shows notification icon - Spam still comes in to inbox with alerts - False positives inevitable at the start, retraining could be easier **Most requested features** - Sort into personalized folders - Ability to filter specified short numbers - User defined regex - Delete all button for junk - Immediately delete setting for certain words - Report functionality directly in message app - Mark messages sent to junk as safe - Option to be blissfully unaware of junk notifications ## Newest reviews (14 of 61) ### 4/5 — Seems to be working again? Hope so. *2023-12-21* Came here intending to do a second update on my review, where I had recently lowered my previous, years-old 5-star rating to 2 for the reasons I gave. But apparently you can only update a review once, as the App Store is asking me to write a new one. Anyway, for whatever reason I have been pleased to again start seeing texts containing words in my filter-words list properly sent to the junk folder. So maybe something’s been fixed, and I’m upping my rating to 4-stars. Perhaps the issue was unique to my phone or settings, IDK. But on the minus side the fact remains that the developer never responded to my email, as he used to. OTOH, can’t say I paid a lot for the app LOL. ### 2/5 — UPDATED - STOPPED WORKING? Simple but powerful — and effective *2023-12-15* UPDATE DECEMBER 2023: Sadly, this once-great app is now letting though texts with block words. Either it stopped working completely; is only working intermittently; or has reached some sort of capacity limitation. The fact that the developer never responded to my inquiry about this — despite being very responsive in the past — supports my impression that this app no longer works properly. Will have to look for a replacement. Great app! Has cut WAY back on the annoying situation where my phone sounds an alert for what turns out to be a spam sms. And keeps the “caught” messages in a separate folder where I can easily delete them. A few weeks back, when a message that should have been caught (had several of my block terms) did slip through, I emailed support and they responded promptly, identifying and fixing the issue. Great! Going to leave a tip as soon as I submit this review. A nice enhancement would be the ability to have any texts from *specified* short numbers filtered out (regardless of content), rather than the current *all* short numbers option. ### 5/5 — Great app *2022-09-01, version 1.8.1* Works well and easy to use. Doesn’t constantly pester you to buy or upgrade. I like it so far. If I keep it, I’m happy to donate. ### 5/5 — A (free!) text filter that actually works! 😱 *2022-06-30* I’ve been using this app for almost a year now, and I honestly can’t imagine using my iPhone without it. Before I found it, I tried out several different spam text blockers/text filter apps, and here’s what I found: 1) Almost every single one was a paid app or required a paid subscription, but SmartFilter is FREE! • Like I said before (& I can’t say it enough), the app is 100% customizable to what you need it to do. And it is FREE! 2) None of them were as simple to use as SmartFilter is. • It’s extremely easy to customize the settings, so you can go from filtering pretty. much every text that’s not from one of your existing contacts to only filtering texts from short codes or that contain urls. 3) SmartFilter straight up just does the job it says it will do, and it does it better than every single other text filter/blocking app I tried. • Something I love is that you can filter texts from a specific phone number without having to add them to your contacts or block the number completely, allowing phone calls to still come through. ### 5/5 — Works Beautifully for Me! *2022-06-20, version 1.8.1* Downloaded this smart filter because I was getting sick of spam messages. Believe it or not that was a year ago and I haven’t received any spam messages since that day! This thing works beautifully on my iPhone! ### 5/5 — Simple and useful - and free *2022-05-31, version 1.8.1* Gives you exactly what it says. Filters spam messages with a algorithm that works most of the time. And you can add keywords to match for allowed and junk messages to handle any cases that the smart algorithm miscategorizes (currently Walmart order messages). User defined regex would be a great function to add. As long as the message filtering stays on the device and isn’t sent to an external service this free app will be the best sms filtering one out there! ### 5/5 — Changed my life *2022-01-19, version 1.8.1* I was getting an average of 10 spam texts daily, often vulgar messages. AT&T claimed to have made some changes to my account to block them but there was no improvement. SmartFilter started cutting down on spam immediately, and by sharing a few messages with the app to train it, it has totally solved my problem. Occasionally two-factor auth texts get picked up by the filter but it’s easy enough to find them and then retrain the filter. I recommend this app to anyone with a spam problem. ### 5/5 — Best App! *2021-07-29, version 1.8.1* I am so happy that this app is free! I was looking for a app to filter all the bad spam I get. This app has done an amazing job at keeping unknown messages from my main inbox. ### 5/5 — Life Saver works great *2021-07-27, version 1.8.1* This is a great SMS filter with advanced filtering options. I tried many others before trying this one and I ended up settling with this one, because it actually works. I no longer get notifications for spam. ### 5/5 — Fixed my issue! *2021-07-02, version 1.8.1* I use to get several junk text messages a day and needed something to help with the problem. I downloaded this app, set it to my preferences and haven’t has a junk text since! Definitely does it’s job. ### 3/5 — Good but could be better *2021-06-01, version 1.8.1* The app does well at filtering junk but there needs to be more features added to process the junk. There needs to be a button for “delete all“. There should an setting to “immediately delete” for messages with words you’re absolutely certain you never want to see. ### 5/5 — Works Great *2021-05-03, version 1.8.1* In feed to block spam coming from an sms email gateway. This does that perfectly!! ### 5/5 — Amazing! *2021-04-05, version 1.8.1* I recently switched providers and numbers thinking it would fix my spam problem, however it was much worse. I was about to talk to the provider and figure out how a number can have so much spam. Multiple texts a day asking for money, to click links, my fake package has been delivered, or sending sexual texts or sugar daddy messages and emails through iMessage. It was honestly embarrassing to even have my phone with sounds turned on as these were constantly going off. This filter changed my life and now I get them all filtered out! Thank you! ### 5/5 — Works perfectly! The only filter you need. *2020-12-30, version 1.8.1* So far so good! Until Apple Has any empathy for its users and implements filtering natively, SmartFilter is the solution. I was slowly losing patience with the same spam over and over again, then I came upon this app and gave it a go. It catches what you don’t want to see and quietly puts it into a separate list from where deletion is easy. Apple, get it together! SmartFilter, thank you. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Abandoned *2025-05-09, version 1.8.1* Last update was from 4 years ago, blocking emails doesn’t work, keyword blocking only sometimes works ### 1/5 — Keyword filter does not work *2023-07-26, version 1.8.1* Tried to match text to incoming SMS alerts. Messages still go through. Maybe it just handles single words, which would be dumb. ### 1/5 — Doesn’t appear to work *2022-04-03, version 1.8.1* Installed it, set to filter short links, and no effect. Spam with short links continue to flow thru. ### 1/5 — Failed to recognize obvious, repetitive spam *2022-01-20, version 1.8.1* The spam-detection model just does not seem to work well at all. Even after reporting several examples, the app continues to let through “ATT Free Message” spam that all follows the same pattern and includes suspicious URLs. ### 1/5 — Is this broken in iOS 14.4? *2021-02-03, version 1.8.1* I follows the setup instructions, but still I seem spam SMS. As far as I can tell, not a single message gets filtered. ### 1/5 — Most likely selling our number *2020-09-24* My original goal was to block occasional sms spam links. But since installing this I’m getting tons of unknown call. The dev site is also just an Ad on medium. avoid/Beware **Developer response:** I’m sorry, but I am NOT selling your number. This is a coincidence that you are receiving more spam. If you need support please send and email to smartfilterapp@gmail.com. The dev site is an article on medium about the app. I am the only developer for the app and I don’t have the resources for a full website. ### 1/5 — SmartFilter does not filter out anything *2020-08-24, version 1.8.1* I’ve had the app installed for a day (and yes, I’ve enabled it in the settings of the messages app) and it is 0/4 in detecting spam SMS with the “SmartFilter” toggled on. Zero percent success rate. ### 1/5 — Does not work at all *2019-10-18, version 1.7.1* After open this app in the settings and allow it to filter message, spams still come in to my inbox and have alerts. ### 1/5 — Report sms doesn’t work *2018-10-31, version 1.3* Just downloaded this. Tried to report a spam message and nothing happened. Hit submit a bunch of times and the report doesn’t appear to have been submitted. ### 2/5 — Keyword Filter No Longer Working *2024-01-28, version 1.8.1* I used to be a big fan of this app, but the Keyword function (user-specified words to always allow or always classify as Junk) stopped working months ago. That was the most important feature for me, so I’ve moved on to an alternate app. The reasons I am giving two stars instead of one are: (1) The less-important-to-me automatic (ie. NON-keyword based filtering) may still be functioning; and (2) in appreciation of prior usefulness and support. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Life altering *2025-10-29, version 1.8.1* I’ve always been so careful about not giving out my number but the political fundraisers found me anyway. Happy to give money to democrats but not happy to receive 10 or more texts a day. Deleting and reporting junk did nothing. Smart filter made it stop. The quiet is awesome. The most life improving app I’ve ever had. ### 5/5 — Honestly…it’s great, and how often can you say that *2025-05-26, version 1.8.1* Wish it could sort into personalized folders but otherwise this is one of the best set it and forget it apps on here ### 5/5 — Works great! *2025-03-31, version 1.8.1* With this app, I’m easily able to filter out spam text messages from unknown numbers that contain specific keywords. Great app! ### 5/5 — Life saver *2024-03-31, version 1.8.1* This app is great no more spam text! ### 5/5 — You’ll need nothing else! *2024-01-02, version 1.8.1* I was looking for something to help stop all the junk text I was getting everyday! Downloaded lots of apps that claim to stop them from getting through! After a few weeks of trying all the apps, I ran across this one! Figured I’d give it a try and just as soon as I set it up, 100% of the junk text completely stopped reaching my inbox! It’s been over a year now and I’m still waiting for a junk text to get through! This app is by far the best one I’ve tried yet! ### 5/5 — I can’t believe it… all the political sms have stopped *2023-09-28, version 1.8.1* I’m so happy to have found this app. I went through the gazillion sms I’ve received from political campaigns and extracted the root domains like “winred”, and “red23”. After adding a dozen of these filter words I waited. By the next day 3 have already been filtered to junk. What a blessing. Thank you so much Jake. Sent a tip right away. ### 5/5 — Best one so far!!! *2023-09-23* Everyday I would receive off the wall text messages about crap that didn’t pertain to me, or benefit me in any way! From porn crap, to sales gimmicks, and other junk I couldn’t read! After downloading and setting up SmartFilter, 99.9% of junk text have stopped! Every few months one might squeeze thru and ding my phone, but it’s a lot better than receiving 6 to 12 junk messages a day, and sometimes more than that!!! All in all, THIS APP WORKS!!! ### 5/5 — This app works fantastic! *2023-06-20* I was constantly getting crazy, off the wall messages several times a day, everyday! Started downloading spam blocker apps. After a couple weeks I’d delete the app because it wouldn’t stop the messages! After several app I finally downloaded Smart Filter. Set it to my preferences and believe it or not, I haven’t received a trash message since! Works beautifully! ### 5/5 — Best Message Filter *2023-05-23, version 1.8.1* Recommend it to everyone! ### 5/5 — Best and Easiest! *2022-10-29, version 1.8.1* I accidentally deleted this app earlier today and boy did I add it back as fast as possible! It catches the spam and keeps the junk out of my iPhone messages. Super easy to install and enable, less than 2 minutes and I’m back in business. Phew! --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-20.*