We all know how cumbersome it might be to decide on anything that involves a bunch of people. It's equally hard when you want to convince your family or friends to try out a new place to eat or nail the right time to meet. With iOS 26, Apple offers a solution by adding the ability to create and send polls in iMessage and in this guide, we'll help you do that using your iPhone's Messages app.
Create polls in iMessage on iPhone
Polls are among the many new iOS 26 features that improve the overall iPhone experience. You can start a poll inside iMessages from any conversation, be it on group chats or one-on-one threads. Here's how you can create them on your iPhone:
- Launch the Messages app on your iPhone and open a conversation where you wish to create a poll.
- Here, tap on the + icon at the bottom left and select Polls.
- When the Polls draft opens, you'll be able to see three spaces for poll choices. You can start filling them up one by one (Choice 1, Choice 2, etc.), and additional choice (up to 12 in total) will appear as you type them.
- Once choices are filled, you can add the associated question or message for the poll inside the "Add Comment or Send" text box at the bottom.
- Now, tap on the Send button at the bottom right to share the poll you just created.
- Once a poll has been shared, recipients can vote by tapping on their preferred options.
- Additionally, any participant can add a choice of their own to the poll by tapping on Add Choice at the end of a shared poll.
- Once the poll options show up, type a desired choice(s) and then tap on the Send button at the bottom right to share it with others.
That's it. You've successfully created a poll and shared it with your friends. You can interact with the polls and wait for others to respond to it before checking out the results.
Additionally, iPhones and devices that support Apple Intelligence will offer AI suggestions for polls from recent conversation. These suggestions will appear at the top of the keyboard with an option that reads "Create Poll".
Check poll results in iPhone Messages app
The Messages app shows a simple, dynamic bar of sorts to make it easy for every participant to know which option is the most preferred. When someone votes on their desired choice, the option bar expands in size compared to other options. The option with the most votes will be bigger in length compared to others.
Everyone in the conversation can see who voted for what by checking the Apple profile pictures inside the available choices. If you wish to see the full list of people who voted on the poll, long-press on the poll choices and select Poll Details from the overflow menu.
Here, you'll see the names of people who voted for what options. This screen also reveals who's yet to mark their preferred choice in the poll, so you can ping them personally and ask them to do it.
Things you should know while using polls in Apple Messages
Now that you know the basics of using polls inside iMessage, it's time to figure out the little nuances you'll need to understand when creating or interacting with them on a daily basis.
- First things first, Polls are only available inside the Messages app on iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe, watchOS 26, visionOS 26 or later. Those running on older versions or non-Apple devices will see a message that says a poll was shared in the conversation.
- Polls can be shared on all iMessage conversations, group and personal chats.
- A poll can be created with at least 2 options or up to 12 options in total.
- Both participants and the poll creator can add more poll options as long as the total count doesn't exceed 12.
- Poll creators cannot restrict others from adding more choices to a poll.
- People can vote for more than one option in a poll, this way polls may have multiple winners if an equal number of participants voted for different choices. At the time of writing, there's no limitation to the number of options someone can vote on.
- The choice with the lengthiest bar is the leading option in a poll, and you can use who voted for them by checking out the pictures that appear inside the option.
- When participants vote on a poll, anyone in the conversation can see who chose what and who haven't voted yet.
- Polls cannot be created on Apple Watches, but users can vote on shared polls as long as they're on watchOS 26.
- Polls, once shared, cannot be deleted after 2 minutes of sending them in a chat.
The ability to create Polls is an added utility that makes the Messages app a little more fun to use alongside the iOS 26 chat backgrounds customisation. These features definitely help improve the overall iMessage experience, something I stressed about a lot in my iOS 26 review.
