“Make a fake text message” means two completely different things depending on which side of the platform divide your audience is on. On iPhone, a text lives in iMessage: blue bubbles, no timestamps inside the bubbles, a small “Delivered” line underneath. On Android, it lives in Google Messages: Material-flavoured blue, timestamped bubbles, a different header entirely. Audiences notice instantly when the two are mixed, because both interfaces are among the most viewed screens in the world.
This guide covers both, using the free text message generator and the Android SMS generator — no signup, no watermark, everything rendered locally in your browser.
iPhone: the rules of an iMessage mockup
iMessage is deceptively minimal, which is exactly why errors stand out. Get these four details right and the screenshot passes a casual glance every time:
- Bubble colour: outgoing is the Apple blue, incoming is light grey. Never use WhatsApp green or a saturated default web blue — the Apple blue is softer than most people remember.
- No timestamps inside bubbles. Times appear as small centred dividers between groups of messages, not per-bubble.
- The delivery line. Under the last outgoing message sits a tiny grey “Delivered” label. It is one of the most-looked-at details in the whole screenshot — including it, with the right wording and weight, does more for realism than any other single element.
- Bubble shape and width. Fully rounded ends, and a width cap around three-quarters of the screen. A bubble that stretches edge to edge reads as fake before anyone reads a word.
Android: the rules of a Google Messages mockup
The Android SMS generator follows Google Messages, which behaves differently from iMessage in ways that are easy to get wrong:
- Bubbles carry their own timestamps. Unlike iMessage, the time sits inside the bubble next to the text, in a smaller, muted shade.
- Header shows the contact with a letter avatar. Google Messages uses a coloured circle with the contact's initial, not a photo by default.
- The blue is different. Google's Material blue is closer to a classic link blue than Apple's pastel-leaning bubble. Reusing the iMessage blue on an Android frame is a dead giveaway.
- Status bar geometry. Android shows the clock on the left and the battery/signal cluster on the right, with a camera hole punch rather than a notch — the reason our exports skip the phone frame by default: a real screenshot is captured by the OS and never contains the body of the phone.
Choosing the right platform for your scene
Match the device to the character, not to your own phone. A teenager in the US is believably on iMessage; a small-business owner in Europe or Asia is more likely on WhatsApp or Telegram; an Android flagship user in almost any market is on Google Messages or a manufacturer's SMS app. If your video or slide deck shows an iPhone frame around Google Messages colours, the audience will not be able to name the error, but they will feel it — and that faint wrongness costs you immersion.
A practical trick from storyboard artists: decide the platform first, then let it shape the dialogue. iMessage's “Delivered” line is a storytelling tool — a message marked delivered but never answered says “being ignored” without a single word of dialogue. On Android, the visible in-bubble timestamps let you show a three-hour gap between messages as pure visual information.
Typing rhythm: the part no generator can do for you
The screenshots that convince are the ones where the conversation has rhythm. Real texting is lopsided — one person sends four messages while the other sends one. Typos happen and usually stay uncorrected. Punctuation fades in casual chats and returns in awkward ones. And the most natural pattern of all is the double text: two short messages in a row from the same sender, the second one walking back the first. If every exchange in your mockup is a tidy question and a tidy answer, it reads as written correspondence, not a conversation.
Exporting for video and slides
Both generators export PNG at 1x, 2x and 3x. For video overlays and slide decks, 2x is the sweet spot: sharp on a retina screen without bloating file size. For a phone-in-hand shot in a video, turn the phone frame on; for a full-screen insert where you will add your own motion and shadows, turn it off and export just the screen. And as always, everything is generated on your device — no account, no upload, no watermark.
Where the line is
A staged text conversation used in a skit, a design review or a classroom exercise is a legitimate creative device. The same image used to manufacture evidence, to impersonate someone, or to deceive a specific person is not, and our Acceptable Use Policy draws that line explicitly. Make things audiences recognise as staged — the good kind of fake is the one nobody is ever tempted to submit as proof.