If you use the Apple Messages app on your Mac to chat with friends, family, and coworkers, your inbox can quickly become cluttered. Important conversations with your spouse or boss can easily get pushed down the list and buried beneath two-factor authentication codes and promotional spam texts. To keep your most critical chats instantly accessible, macOS allows you to “pin” specific conversations permanently to the top of your Messages window.
What Does Pinning Do?
When you pin a conversation, it is removed from the standard chronological list of text messages. Instead, it transforms into a large, circular icon featuring the contact’s photo (or their initials) and sits persistently at the absolute top of the left-hand sidebar. No matter how many new messages you receive from other people, your pinned contacts will never move down the screen. You can pin up to nine different conversations simultaneously.
How to Pin a Chat
Pinning a conversation is incredibly simple and can be done in a few different ways.
Method 1: The Drag and Drop
- Open the Messages app on your Mac.
- Locate the conversation you want to pin in the left-hand list.
- Click and hold the conversation with your mouse.
- Drag the conversation upward, toward the empty grey space at the very top of the list.
- Release your mouse button. The chat will instantly transform into a large circle.
Method 2: The Context Menu
- Right-click (or two-finger tap on a trackpad) on the conversation you want to pin.
- A small menu will appear. Select Pin from the list of options.
How to Unpin a Conversation
If you no longer need a chat pinned to the top of your screen, removing it is just as easy.
- Right-click (or two-finger tap) on the large circular icon of the pinned contact at the top of the sidebar.
- Select Unpin from the context menu.
Alternatively, you can simply click and drag the circular icon downward back into the main chronological list of text messages.
Note: Because Apple syncs your Messages across your iCloud account, any conversation you pin on your Mac will also automatically be pinned to the top of the Messages app on your iPhone and iPad.