Harassing Text Messages: What to Do and How to Document Them

What Counts as Harassment Over Text?

Not every unwanted text is harassment. A rude one-off message, an ex asking once to talk, or a wrong-number text can be unpleasant without crossing a line. Harassment usually means a pattern of unwanted contact meant to alarm, pressure, or torment you, or a single message that carries a real threat. Legal definitions vary by state and country, so treat the descriptions below as a practical guide rather than a legal test.

Common forms of harassment by text include:

• Repeated contact after you've said stop: a flood of texts, messages at all hours, "answer me" demands, guilt trips that turn into insults.
• Threats: to hurt you, your family, or your pets, to show up at your home or work, or to damage your property or reputation.
• Monitoring and intimidation: messages showing the sender knows where you are, who you were with, or what you did that day.
• Sexual harassment: unwanted explicit messages or images, or threats to share private photos.
• Contact by proxy: new numbers, texting apps, or friends and relatives passing messages along after you've blocked someone.

Online harassment is widespread, and texting is one of the places it happens. In Pew Research Center's survey on the state of online harassment, conducted in September 2020 with 10,093 U.S. adults, 41% said they had personally experienced some form of online harassment, and 25% had experienced more severe forms such as physical threats, stalking, sustained harassment, or sexual harassment. Among people who had been harassed, 24% said their most recent experience happened on texting or messaging apps. Social media was far more common, at 75%.

Some texts that feel personal are actually bulk scams, such as a message from an unknown number claiming to have embarrassing footage of you and demanding payment. Those are handled like any other scam: don't reply, don't pay, and report it as spam. The guide to protecting yourself from SMS scams covers that side. The rest of this article is about targeted harassment, where the sender knows who you are or keeps coming back.

Unwanted texting sometimes stops once the sender gets no reaction. Sometimes it doesn't. The signs below suggest a situation is escalating and deserves police or advocate involvement sooner rather than later.

What to Do First When Harassing Texts Start

You don't have to decide right away whether to go to the police or to court. The first job is simpler: stay safe, avoid getting drawn into a conversation, and avoid losing evidence.

1. Don't argue, explain, or retaliate. Replies tend to restart the cycle, and everything you send becomes part of the record too. Threats, insults, or public call-outs from you can make the exchange look mutual.
2. Consider one clear boundary message, once. A short, unemotional text such as "Do not contact me again" removes any doubt that further contact is unwanted. Send it only if it feels safe, then stop responding, whatever comes back. If the person has been violent or controlling, talk with an advocate before sending anything.
3. Don't delete anything, including messages you can't bear to reread. Mute or archive the thread instead.
4. Save before you block. Take screenshots first (the next section explains how), then decide about blocking.
5. Tell someone you trust. A friend or family member who knows what's happening can notice escalation, hold copies of your evidence, and act as a witness.

Example: a one-time boundary message

+1 (202) 555-0187

Text Message

Why are you ignoring me? You can't just disappear.

Answer me or I will keep texting until you do.

I do not want any further contact. Do not text, call, or message me again.

Notice what the reply leaves out: no explanation, no apology, no emotion to react to. Explanations invite debate, and debate is contact. If you already replied angrily or went back and forth for a while, that doesn't ruin anything. Stop now, keep the whole thread, including your own messages, and start documenting from here.

How to Document Harassing Text Messages

Documentation turns "they won't leave me alone" into a record that police, a court, or your carrier can act on. The Safety Net project at the National Network to End Domestic Violence, which focuses on technology and abuse, publishes documentation tips on its Technology Safety site. It recommends keeping a log of every incident even if you aren't sure you'll ever involve police or courts, and it points out that saving threatening messages, tempting as it is to delete them, can show patterns. That matters, because a pattern is often what separates harassment from a single bad message.

Capture Screenshots That Hold Up

Safety Net suggests taking a screenshot or photo of harassing texts, plus a screenshot of the contact page, so the messages are clearly tied to the sender's phone number. The steps below make each capture more useful.

A few details separate a pile of images from usable evidence. Labels like "Yesterday" or a weekday name aren't dates, so write the calendar date in your log next to each screenshot. Don't crop out the number or the time, and don't draw on the originals; if you want to highlight something, mark up a copy. Keep the original messages on your phone as well, since an investigator may want to see them on the device itself.

If an app blocks screenshots, or alerts the sender when you take one, Safety Net suggests using a second, safer device to photograph or record the screen. It notes that some messaging apps, including social apps with direct messages, notify the other person about screenshots and screen recordings. Standard text messages don't.

Keep an Incident Log

Screenshots show what was said; a log shows the pattern. Safety Net's suggested log fields fit text harassment well, and a couple of additions make the log more useful to police or in a protective-order petition.

Keep the log factual and somewhere the sender can't see it: a paper notebook, a document in an account only you control, or a simple spreadsheet. Consistency matters more than format. A dated entry for every incident, even the small ones, lets an officer or a judge see the whole picture quickly.

Store Copies Where the Sender Can't Reach Them

Messages that live only on your phone are fragile. Safety Net notes that texts stored only on a phone can be deleted by accident, or automatically if you run out of space, and phones also get lost, broken, or reset. Keep at least one copy elsewhere: a cloud account with a password the sender has never known and two-factor authentication turned on, an email account that's yours alone, or a trusted friend who holds a copy.

Avoid anything the sender can access. If you share a cloud account, a family plan, a computer, or a photo library with them, don't store evidence there. And resist posting screenshots publicly; it can escalate the situation and complicate a later case.

If You Already Deleted Messages

It happens, especially in the first shock. On iPhone, deleted messages stay in the Recently Deleted folder of the Messages app for up to 30 days (as of iOS 27), and you can restore them from there. Some Android messaging apps have a similar trash or recycle bin in their menu. If a message is truly gone, write down what you remember as precisely as you can, with the approximate date, and note that you deleted it. An honest gap is better than a reconstructed quote.

One more iPhone trap: the option to report a message as spam is labeled Delete and Report Spam, and it removes the message as part of the report. Don't use it on anything you want to keep as evidence.

How to Stop Harassing Texts on iPhone and Android

Blocking gets the messages off your screen, and you're entitled to that relief. It comes with two tradeoffs. On iPhone, messages from a blocked number aren't delivered at all, so anything the person sends afterward won't be on your phone as evidence. And blocking stops a number, not a person; someone determined can switch numbers. Capture what you have first, then pick the option that fits.

Block a Number on iPhone

As of iOS 27 (September 2026), open the conversation, tap the person's icon at the top, tap Info, scroll down, and tap Block Contact. Labels shift slightly between iOS versions, but the option lives in the same place. Blocking a contact in Messages also blocks them in Phone, FaceTime, Mail, and other Apple apps, and the sender isn't told they've been blocked. You can review everyone you've blocked in Settings > Privacy & Security > Blocked Contacts.

Blocked callers can still leave a voicemail, though you won't get a notification about it. If you're keeping a record, look through your voicemail for a blocked-messages section now and then.

Block a Number on Android

Android menus vary by phone maker and messaging app. In Google Messages, touch and hold the conversation, tap Block, then OK; you can manage blocked contacts under Spam & blocked in the app's menu. Samsung Messages has its own block option, found through the conversation's menu or contact details. What happens to later messages from a blocked number depends on the app and the phone, so don't treat a spam folder as your evidence archive.

Block, Mute, Filter, or Change Your Number?

A middle path is to mute the thread instead of blocking it and check it on your own schedule, or with a trusted friend, so the record keeps growing without landing on your screen. On iPhone, Screen Unknown Senders does something similar for new numbers: in Messages, tap the filter button in the conversation list, tap Manage Filtering, and turn it on. Texts from unknown senders then go to a separate Unknown Senders list, and you aren't notified about them. To go further, Screen Time can limit messages to people in your contacts.

When They Keep Switching Numbers

Texting apps and prepaid phones make new numbers easy to get, so blocking one at a time can turn into a losing game. Filtering unknown senders cuts the noise. For the record, log every new number and note what connects it to the same person: the writing style, nicknames, references to things only they would know. Those details can help investigators tie the numbers together.

Don't try to unmask the sender yourself with lookup sites or by baiting them into revealing who they are. Results can be wrong, and engaging can escalate things. And the effort someone puts into hiding can itself matter legally, as the federal law described below shows.

If the texts keep coming no matter what you block, a new number may be worth the disruption. The guide to signs you should stop sharing your number covers when changing numbers makes sense and how to limit who gets the new one.

How to Report Harassing Texts to Your Carrier and the Police

Reporting to Your Carrier

Your mobile carrier can't arrest anyone, but it can help. Depending on the carrier, it may offer blocking tools for your line, help you change your number, and explain its process for harassment complaints. Policies differ, and some carriers point customers to law enforcement first, so ask directly. You can say something like: "I'm receiving harassing text messages from this number, starting on this date, and I've documented them. What blocking options do you have for my line, what's your process for harassment complaints, and would a police report help?"

What a carrier generally won't do is tell you who owns a number. Subscriber information is typically released only through legal process, such as a subpoena or court order in a police investigation or a lawsuit. That's a big reason a police report matters when the sender is anonymous.

Spam-reporting shortcuts, such as forwarding a text to 7726 in the U.S., are built for bulk spam, not for someone targeting you personally. If the harassment arrives through an app such as WhatsApp or Instagram, use that platform's report tools as well, after you've captured the messages, since some report flows also delete the conversation. If the sender is a coworker, classmate, or client, a report to HR, the school, or the business may also be appropriate.

Reporting to the Police

Call 911 for immediate danger. Otherwise, use your local police non-emergency line or go in person. It's reasonable to report when the texts include threats of violence, show signs of stalking such as references to your location, include sexual threats or images, continue after you've clearly asked for no contact, violate an existing court order, or come from someone who has abused you before.

Bring:

• Your incident log, printed if possible
• Printed screenshots, plus the digital copies
• Your phone, with the original messages still on it
• The sender's name and details, if you know them
• Copies of any earlier police reports or court orders

Before you leave, ask for the report number, the officer's name and badge number, and who will follow up. Ask whether the department has a victim advocate. Record all of it in your log.

If You're Told It's Not a Crime

Responses vary by department and by officer. If you're told the texts are "just words" or a civil matter, stay calm and ask which law they considered, and whether the pattern could qualify as harassment or stalking under your state's law. Ask them to take a report anyway, since a documented report can help later, including with a protective order. You can also ask for a supervisor or a detective, contact the victim services office at your local prosecutor's office if there is one, or get help from a local advocate. Keep logging. Each new incident adds to the pattern, and a situation that doesn't meet the bar at first may meet it after more documented contact.

What the Law Says About Harassing Texts

Federal Law

Two U.S. federal statutes speak directly to harassment through phones and electronic communication.

The first, 47 U.S.C. § 223, covers harassing calls and telecommunications in interstate or foreign communications. Among other things, it prohibits using a telecommunications device without disclosing your identity, with intent to abuse, threaten, or harass a specific person; making someone's phone ring repeatedly or continuously to harass them; and repeatedly initiating communication with a telecommunications device solely to harass a specific person. Violations can bring a fine, up to two years in prison, or both.

The second is the federal stalking statute, 18 U.S.C. § 2261A. Among other conduct, it covers someone who, intending to kill, injure, harass, intimidate, or surveil another person, uses the mail, an interactive computer service, an electronic communication service, or another facility of interstate commerce to engage in a "course of conduct" that places the person in reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury, or that causes, attempts to cause, or would reasonably be expected to cause substantial emotional distress. The protection extends to the person's immediate family and to a spouse or intimate partner.

Two practical points follow. The stalking statute turns on a course of conduct, which is why a dated log of the whole pattern matters, not only the worst message. And federal charges are brought by federal prosecutors; most people start with local police, who work under state law.

State Laws

States have their own harassment and stalking laws, and they differ in the details: whether repeated contact is required, what intent must be shown, whether a single threatening message is enough, and whether it matters that you asked the person to stop. Depending on the state, harassing texts might fall under laws titled harassment, telephone or electronic harassment, cyberstalking, stalking, or criminal threats. Outside the U.S., many countries have their own harassment and communications offenses, and local police are the place to start.

If you're unsure whether what you're receiving crosses a legal line, the legal guide to private communication explains where private messaging becomes illegal harassment or threats, and why hiding behind an anonymous number doesn't change that.

Protective Orders: When a Court Can Order Contact to Stop

A protective order is a court order that can require someone to stop contacting you, including by text. Depending on where you live, it may be called a restraining order, protection order, order of protection, peace order, or a stalking or harassment order. Safety Net notes that an incident log can help if you want to involve the police or seek a restraining order, and this is where your documentation does its most direct work.

Details vary widely by state, but the process in the U.S. often looks like this:

1. Find the order that fits. Orders tied to domestic violence usually require a family, household, or dating relationship. Many states also offer orders for stalking or harassment by anyone, including neighbors, coworkers, or strangers.
2. File a petition with your local court describing what happened, with dates, drawing on your log and screenshots. Court self-help centers, legal aid offices, and domestic violence programs can help with the forms.
3. A temporary order may come quickly. In many places a judge can issue a short-term order, sometimes the same day, before the other person has been notified.
4. A hearing follows, where both sides can appear and the judge decides whether to issue a longer-lasting order.
5. The other person is formally served with the order. The court or police can explain how that works locally.

Orders commonly bar contact by any means, including texts, calls, social media, and messages passed through other people, and may require the person to stay away from your home, work, or school. Violating an order can lead to arrest or contempt charges in many places, so document and report every violation the same way you documented the original harassment. In the U.S., filing fees are often waived or not charged in cases involving abuse or stalking, but ask the court clerk.

A protective order is a legal tool, not a guarantee of safety. Keep following your safety plan while one is in place, and ask an advocate to help you build or update that plan.

Harassing Text Messages From an Ex: Extra Safety Steps

Harassing text messages from an ex are different in one important way: an ex knows your routines, your friends, maybe your passwords, and may have had access to your phone and accounts. The texts can be the visible part of a wider pattern of control, so treat them as a safety issue as well as a nuisance.

Get confidential support. The National Domestic Violence Hotline is free, confidential, and available 24/7: call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), text START to 88788, or use its live chat. The Hotline notes that relationship abuse safety planning can help protect you on the path to long-term safety, and its advocates can connect you with resources in your community. It also warns that internet usage can be monitored and is impossible to erase completely, so reach out from a device your ex has never had access to if you can.

Check the simple explanations before assuming spyware. If your ex knows things you never told them, look at the ordinary routes first: location sharing you never turned off, a shared Apple or Google account, a shared photo library or cloud backup, a family phone plan, mutual friends, or public posts. The phone guidance from Safety Net says to trust your instincts, and if you think someone is monitoring your phone, to use a different device that the person can't access. It also recommends turning off location sharing.

Review shared access, carefully. On iPhone, Safety Check (Settings > Privacy & Security > Safety Check) walks you through stopping location sharing in Find My, removing others' access to shared content like Photos, Notes, and Calendar, and restricting Messages and FaceTime to the device in your hand. It also has an Emergency Reset option. On Android, review which devices are signed in to your Google account and whether location sharing is on in Google Maps. Before cutting off access your ex will notice, think through how they might react, ideally with an advocate; a sudden change can sometimes prompt escalation.

Untangle a shared phone plan. If you're on your ex's family plan, the account holder controls the account and can often see call and text logs, meaning numbers and times rather than message content. As of September 2026, the federal Safe Connections Act lets survivors of domestic violence, stalking, and related abuse ask their carrier to separate their line from an account shared with an abuser, and you don't have to be the account holder to ask.

If you co-parent, don't simply go silent. When you share children and a court order requires communication, blocking your ex outright may conflict with that order. Ask your lawyer about moving all communication to one channel; some courts order co-parenting apps that keep a record of every message. Keep your replies brief and about the children.

Take threats about intimate images seriously. If your ex threatens to share intimate photos or videos, or already has, save the messages, don't give in to demands, and report it promptly. It is treated as a serious offense in many places.

Keeping Your Number Private After Harassment

Once the immediate situation is under control, it's worth making yourself harder to reach uninvited. If you changed your number, treat the new one as need-to-know: move two-factor authentication to it (or to an authenticator app) before the old number goes away, give it only to people you trust, and keep it off public profiles, listings, and forms that don't need it. The rundown of privacy mistakes that put your phone number at risk shows common ways numbers get exposed, and what someone can do with your phone number lays out the realistic risks.

For people you don't know well yet, such as marketplace buyers, dates, or new clients, a masked number keeps your real line out of their hands from the start. Ghost sends SMS with your real number hidden; the recipient sees a protected sender ID instead, as explained in how Ghost protects your privacy. With Reply Links, people can reply without ever seeing your number, which the two-way anonymous texting guide walks through. If you date online, number masking for dating apps covers the move from app chat to texting.

Be clear about what masking doesn't do. Ghost is for sending messages: it doesn't block or filter texts you receive, and it can't stop someone who already has your real number. Masking hides your number from the recipient, not from Ghost, carriers, or lawful legal process. Ghost doesn't sell data or store message content after delivery, and it keeps minimal metadata for abuse prevention and valid legal requests, as the privacy summary explains. For harassment already under way, blocking, your carrier, the police, and advocates are the right tools.

There's also a firm line. Never use Ghost, or any service that hides your number, to contact someone who has blocked you, to answer your harasser anonymously, or to test whether they'll respond. That is harassment in its own right, and it can be illegal; the federal statute above specifically covers harassing someone without disclosing your identity.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources

• Pew Research Center: The State of Online Harassment
• Cornell LII: 47 U.S. Code § 223 (obscene or harassing telephone calls)
• Cornell LII: 18 U.S. Code § 2261A (stalking)
• NNEDV Safety Net: Technology Safety
• National Domestic Violence Hotline