How to Text Someone Without Giving Out Your Number

There are plenty of reasons to text someone without handing them your personal number: a marketplace buyer, a date you haven't met yet, a contractor, a neighbor from an online group. The catch is that texting works differently from calling.

Why you can’t just hide your number on a text

For calls, iPhone has Settings > Phone > Show My Caller ID (where your carrier allows it), and in the US you can dial *67 before a number to block caller ID on one call. Neither works for SMS. A text message always carries a sending number, so the only way to keep your number private is to send from a different one.

Option 1: Text from a second number

A second-number app gives you a separate real number that you text and call from. The person you text sees that number, never your own, and they can reply to it like any other number.

• •Works with anyone, on any phone, with normal texts.
• •You can keep one number per purpose, like selling, dating, or work.
• •When you are done with a conversation, you can delete the number.

This is what Ghost does. You pick an area code, get a number in a few minutes, and text from the Ghost app. Your plan includes up to 5 numbers.

Option 2: Stay inside the app you met on

If you met someone on Facebook Marketplace, a dating app, or Nextdoor, the app's own messaging keeps your number out of it. The downside is that you are limited to that app, and many people want to move to text quickly.

Option 3: Use email or iMessage with an email address

iMessage can send from an Apple ID email instead of your phone number (Settings > Messages > Send & Receive). It only works between Apple devices, and it gives away your email address, which is often just as identifying as a phone number.

What doesn’t work

• •*67 and caller ID settings: calls only, never texts.
• •Free texting websites: many are unreliable, carriers often filter them as spam, and the other person usually can’t reply.
• •Borrowing a friend’s phone: it just shares their number instead of yours.