How to make green text messages easier to read on iPhone

By default, any texts you send to a device that doesn’t have iMessage turned on show up as a harsh, bright green bubble. It’s a very obvious signal that you aren’t texting somebody with an Apple device and losing out on things like smoother group chats and snazzy message effects. Frankly, those green texts can also be difficult to parse, something Google has pointed out on its “Get the Message” website.

To make green texts more readable, you’ll have to dive a bit into your iPhone’s settings, but the option is easy to turn on once you know where to look. Here’s how to do it:

Then hop on over to the Messages app and find the last conversation where you sent texts instead of iMessages. Instead of the neon green, your messages will be a darker forest green, and in my opinion, it looks way better.

Note that this setting increases contrast across the Messages app, so you may notice a few other changes as well. iMessages are a much darker blue, for example, and the border around the text input field has a more visible outline. Those don’t bother me, so I’ll probably keep increased contrast on for the much-improved green bubbles.