How To Disable Text Message Previews On Galaxy S8 And Galaxy S8 Plus

Privacy and accessibility are two things that can often contradict, especially when it comes to Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8 Plus. In an attempt of offering its users quick access to the most important notifications, such as the text messages, Samsung introduced an accessibility feature that pushes these notifications on top of the Home screen and even on top of the Lock screen.

While this means that the user will have a quick glance at the content of the message and will also know who sent it, so will do the prying eyes from the nearby.

Getting this message preview on both the notification bar from the top of the display and on the Lock Screen, for those who have an extra security layer (such as a lock pattern or a fingerprint scanning option) is a default option of the Messages app.

The Messages app is the stock messaging app from Samsung. If you don’t appreciate getting these previews, you can either install a third-party messaging app and use it instead of this one or you can just disable these text message previews from Samsung Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8 Plus.

How to disable the text popups on Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus

The pop-up notification for incoming texts wasn’t just conceived to let you take a peek at the message. If you tap on it, you should be automatically redirected to the messaging app, where you can read the entire message and instantly reply to it without having to manually launch the app and tap on the newest conversation thread in there.

At the same time, the preview will show you both the sender and a preview of the message. If you are at work, for instance, depending on who’s messaging you and the topic of discussion, you could get into troubles if someone would notice your private conversations.

Whether you’re getting that popup window or a small preview in the notification bar, you will want to keep sensitive information like that one private. So, let’s just assume that you don’t want any of these options and you want to disable them.

If you do it, you will only be able to see the content of the message when you launch the messaging app. This will obviously give you full control on who and when gets to read the text. Long story short, you can block these previews if you:

Launch the Messages app;
Tap on the MORE option from the top right corner;
Select Settings;
Select Notifications;
Tap on the option labeled as Pop-up Display to disable it;
Tap on the option labeled as Preview Message to disable it.

If you disable both the Pop-up Display and the Preview Message, you will no longer receive any kind of previews of your messages. Nevertheless, if you only use the Preview Message option, you will be able to receive notifications and pop-ups with every new incoming message, without seeing any kind of details on them. While it will inform you about the new message, it won’t even display the sender’s name.

How to control the Lock Screen information on Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus

Now that you have learned how to control the Home screen notifications, let’s focus a little bit on the Lock screen. The best way to go is to leave the pop-up option active and just to deactivate the preview. That’s how you solve the privacy issues and still get to see notifications on the lock screen, knowing that a message awaits you to check it as soon as you unlock the device.

Whether you want to control only the notification or the preview to show up on the Lock screen, you can control this feature if you:

Access the general Settings;
Select Lock Screen and Security;
Select Notifications on Lock Screen;
Tap on the Content on Lock Screen menu;
- Select to hide content – if you want to see notifications about an unread message (this one will work for messages, Twitter, Gmail etc.);
- Select “Do not show notifications” if you don’t want to see any kind of notifications on the Lock screen.

That’s how you control what and how much will show up on your Lock screen.