Chat backgrounds add a fun, personal touch to messages. They can give you a visual identifier for each thread so you can easily tell if you’re messaging the right person or group. And Apple introduced chat backgrounds in Messages when the company was released iOS 26 on September.

With this new feature, you can make the background your own image, use one of Apple’s premade backgrounds and, if you have an Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone, create your own unique background. Just be aware that if you add a background to a chat, everyone in that chat will see the background. So choose carefully.

Here’s how to change the chat background in Messages with iOS 26 and what to know about the feature.

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How to add and change the chat background in Messages

1. TOMORROW Messages.
2. Tap a chat with a saved contact.
3. Tap the name of the person or group near the top of the chat.
4. pat Backgrounds.

You’ll see up to seven options near the top of the Backgrounds menu: None (default), Photo, Color, Sky, Water, Aurora and Playground on Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhones.

Color, Sky, Water and Aurora are all abstract, vibrant backgrounds. Tapping on any of these also gives you more filters that you can choose from. For example, tapping on Sky gives you the options of Dusk, Haze, Sunset and three more filters.

When you tap Photo, you can choose any of the photos in your Library to be your background. After selecting a photo, you can crop the image to better fit the screen or apply a filter to the image. If you’re happy with the background, tap the checkmark in the top right corner of your screen and the photo will become your background for that chat.

The Playground option opens Picture PlaygroundApple’s AI image generation tool, and therefore only available on Apple Intelligence iPhones. You can describe an image by typing a description in the textbox at the bottom of the screen, or you can choose from a variety of suggestions and themes offered by Image Playground. Once Playground creates a background you like, tap the checkmark in the upper right corner of your screen. You will then be taken to a new page where you can apply a background filter if you wish. Then, tap the checkmark in the upper right corner of your screen again and that image will be your chat background.

Below all these options, there is also a Suggestions section. These suggestions are usually filled with photos and an option for the Image Playground on certain iPhones. Tapping on any of the photo suggestions will take you to the same menu where you can change the size or add a filter to the photo before accepting it. Tapping the Image Playground option just opens the menu — it’s kind of weird that it’s a suggestion as well as an option, and it doesn’t seem like they’re doing anything different.

If you don’t like any of the options, or you’re tired of them, you can always remove the background by choosing the default option, None.

Note that if you add, change or remove a chat background, other people in the chat will see that change. So it’s a bad idea to make the family chat background a picture of you making a kegstand.

And don’t forget, you can add or change the chat backgrounds of people you have saved in your contacts. Otherwise, you will not see the Backgrounds option mentioned above.

Do I have to choose a background for each chat?

No, and if you choose a background for a chat, it won’t carry over to any other chats. So a chat with your parents can have a photo of your graduation as the background, and a chat with your siblings can have a photo of you giving them a noogie as the background.

This can be a nice visual cue for you to help you keep track of who you’re talking to. For example, you and your partner might have a chat background of hearts. If you don’t pay attention and tap into a chat and can’t see the background to your heart’s content, you know you don’t need to text this person and ask them to pick up toilet paper from the store on their way home.

Similarly, if you have backgrounds in most of your group chats and you get a message from a chat with no background, you know you need to re-check who’s in the chat so you don’t have the courage to announce to strangers that you survived a trip to the bathroom without toilet paper.

For more iOS news, here’s what to know iOS 26.2 and what is included in iOS 26.1. You can also check out our iOS 26 cheat sheet for other tips and tricks.

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