How to Enable MMS on an iPhone

Did you know that iMessage is only one way to send texts with multimedia elements—like music, pictures, and videos—from your iPhone? A work-around is enabling Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) on your iPhone. This way, you can use MMS to send messages to friends, family, and even potential customers that are rich and meaningful. Sounds great, right?

Of course, to start sending MMS messages from your iPhone instead of iMessages, you need to enable MMS messaging. But with so many options to sift through from your iPhone’s settings, it’s easy to find yourself wondering: how do I enable MMS messaging? Read on to discover how to enable MMS on iPhone and why this messaging approach is pivotal for communicating with the widest variety of people possible.

Why is enabling MMS on iPhone important?

There are a lot of great reasons to enable MMS on your iPhone. As the name implies, MMS is a smarter and more convenient way to send multimedia assets from your phone because you can embed these assets within the messages themselves.

For example, if you send a URL to someone via MMS, you can embed metadata—such as an image, title, and subtitle—within the text itself. This makes it easier for users to understand the message at a glance.

More importantly, while iMessage offers the functionality of SMS and MMS, you can only send its messages to other iOS users. Enabling MMS on iPhone is a great way to send multimedia-enriched text to the largest number of people possible. Learn more about what MMS is and how to deliver MMS messages.

Steps for enabling MMS on iPhone

Often, your iPhone comes with MMS messaging already enabled by default. But if not, you might find yourself wondering: where are my MMS settings? If that sounds like you, or you’ve encountered a message that goes something like, “MMS messaging needs to be enabled to send this message.” Follow these steps to learn how to turn on MMS messages on your iPhone.

1. Open Settings

First, you’ll need to access your iPhone’s settings menu. You might find the settings icon available from your home screen. If so, just tap it. Otherwise, swipe down on your home screen to pull up the search field, then type Settings and tap the result.

2. Tap Messages

From your settings screen, scroll down until you reach the label that reads Messages and tap it. If you have trouble finding it, look halfway down the section that starts with Passwords & Accounts.

3. Toggle MMS messaging on

Once you’re in the Messages menu, scroll down until you reach the SMS/MMS section. At the top of this list, you should see an option that reads MMS Messaging. If the toggle slider is to the left and grayed out, tap the toggle to send it right and turn it green. Congratulations, you’ve just enabled MMS messaging for your iPhone!

If you don’t see this option, it’s possible your carrier doesn’t support MMS messaging on your iPhone. In that case, disabling iMessage will convert your messages to SMS. Learn more about the differences between SMS and MMS messages.

Steps for disabling Wi-Fi Calling

Some carriers will activate Wi-Fi-Calling on your iPhone by default which offers a better quality voice call when you are in an area with low cellular coverage. However, not all carriers support MMS when in Wifi-Calling mode. To disable Wifi-Calling on an iPhone, follow these steps. 

1. Open Settings

As in the previous steps, let’s go back into the settings menu. Tap the Settings icon on your home screen or search. 

2. Tap Mobile

To access the carrier setting, tap on the Mobile to access mobile network configuration. 

3. Tap Carrier Configuration

Under the SIMs section, tap on the phone line for the network provider you want to configure. If you have multiple SIMs or eSIM, you may have to do this multiple times. 

4. Toggle Wi-Fi Calling off

Under the name of your network provider, find Wi-Fi Calling and if it is On, tap the arrow to enter the Wi-Fi Calling menu and toggle the slider to turn it Off. 

After turning off Wi-Fi-Calling, you may want to turn off Wi-Fi and force your phone to use cellular data before turning Wi-Fi back on.

Steps for disabling iMessage

Before you can send MMS messages from your iPhone, you need to disable iMessage, given that iMessage is a different communications protocol than MMS. In other words, if you send messages to other iPhone users via iMessage, you can’t send them via MMS or vice versa.

Follow these 3 simple steps to disable iMessage on your iPhone to send more universal MMS messages to your friends, family, or customers.

1. Open Settings

As with enabling MMS, disabling iMessage on your iPhone starts from your settings menu. Then, tap the Settings icon from your home screen, or swipe up to search for settings from the search field.

2. Tap Messages

Scroll until you find Messages, then tap it. It’s about halfway down the section that reads Passwords & Accounts.

3. Toggle iMessage off

You’re in the Messages menu. Welcome back! Now, find the iMessage label with the slider. If the toggle slider is to the left and grayed out, tap it to send it right and turn it green. iMessage will now be active.

Unlock world-class MMS messaging for your business with Twilio

Want to deliver more meaningful, higher-quality content to the widest variety of users? Take advantage of MMS messaging with the help of Twilio’s world-class messaging services.

Now, you can go beyond offering prospects a quick product pitch. Sure, a few sharp sentences of copy can be a great start, but what if you embed an image of the product? What if you provide a video demonstration showing how it works?

Suddenly, your text message goes from basic to grabbing a prospect’s attention and getting them into your digital ecosystem. That’s the power of MMS.

Learn what MMS can do for your business messaging from the experts at Twilio.