Texting isn’t just for the kids anymore, with 33% of Americans preferring a text to a phone call. Communicating by text has expanded past informal social conversation into more professional realms, meaning you could spend a significant portion of your day responding to texts.
This means you have to text more people than ever, which in turn means more people have access to your phone number. It can be hard to maintain your privacy when a dozen people are sending information directly to your pocket every day.
One way to combat this is to hide your phone number to get the message to the recipient without giving them your personal info. Doing this can be complicated depending on what kind of device you have and your intentions for hiding your phone number.
Here are a few ways that you can send a text without showing your phone number.
Calling Anonymously
Both Android and Apple carriers have built-in features for letting you hide your caller ID. However, this is only for making calls. If you are willing to give the person a call instead of sending a text, you can do the following:
Hiding Caller ID On Android Smartphone
The layout of the Android OS differs depending on your version and device, but the basic process should be the same.
Open your phone app.
Tap on the three dots in the corner and select the settings button.
Click on call settings, then click on additional settings.
Click on caller ID.
Click the hide number option.
Hiding Caller ID in iOS (iPhone)
Open the settings function.
Click on your phone app.
Select show my caller ID, and toggle it off.
Anonymous Texting Services
If calling is out of the question and you need to send an anonymous text, you could try an anonymous texting website. Note that these services need information from you in order to send your text, and you need to pay per text.
As a result, you need to be sure that the site you are using is legitimate before you move forward with this option. Among the options most commonly used is anonymoustext.com, where you can send a text message with complete privacy for a fee.
This isn’t a long-term option, but if you only need to send one private text, you could try this out.
Encrypted VoIP and Text Messaging
If your goal is to keep your text messages as anonymous as possible while still allowing the receiving party to know who you are, you might want to try an encryption program.
Signal is a reliable option that provides end-to-end encryption on all your calls and text messages. Apps like Signal are great resources for people who want to make sure their messages are secure and only being looked at by the person you send them to.
Once again, will still tell the person getting the text who you are, but you won’t have any third parties listening in if that is what you are trying to avoid.
Using a Burner With Your Texting App
Perhaps one of the most traditional ways of maintaining your privacy is through the use of burner phones, which are temporary phones that you buy and throw away when you are finished with them.
While real-life burners are somewhat archaic, apps like Burner allow you to perform the same function without having to buy a piece of hardware.
Burner allows you to get a second phone number on your current device, which would make you appear like a completely different person to a third party. For a subscription fee, you can use this second number indefinitely while maintaining complete privacy.
With this method, no one else needs to get access to your phone number, and you don’t need to go through a website to send your SMS message; you can just use your own mobile device.
Conclusion
Whatever your reasons for wanting to send an SMS text message anonymously may be, there is an option out there for you. If you just want to send a quick call, you can always turn to your built-in options, and if you want to keep your number private and secure, you would be better off trying an app like Burner.
If you want to keep up your anonymity, you will need to work for it a bit, but there are ways to keep your cell phone number and personal information safe when sending texts, even in today’s landscape.
Start your 7-day free trial with the Burner app today.
Sources:
Americans and Text Messaging | Pew Research
