What Is a Text Blast?
A Text Blast sends a personalized message to multiple contacts as separate, one-on-one texts. Each person replies in their own conversation. Use it for invitations, event follow-ups, or checking in with a group. You can think of a text blast as a bulk message/SMS, or mass text sent individually to the recievers.
Reaching out to one person? Sending Texts with Dextr shows how to start an individual text from a profile or widget and save the useful details afterward.
Why Use Text Blasts?
Text Blasts are useful for anyone who organizes a group or event and needs to reach many people without starting a group chat. Write the message once, personalize it for each contact, and send it as separate, one-on-one texts.
Direct Communication
Sending individual messages removes the chaos of a group text: one reply does not notify everyone or start a side conversation. Replies arrive in private conversations, so you can follow up with each person directly.
Privacy
Because each message goes out individually, a text blast does not expose other recipients’ phone numbers or contact information to the group that you are messaging. Additionally, Dextr does not use any outside services so your contacts’ data is not distributed to another service who might later sell it or use it for marketing purposes.
Data Security & Message History
Providing access to your messages to, say, a chatbot A.I. for the purpose of sending texts could potentially give it access to your entire message history, including any photos that were part of those messages. Once a service has access to your message history, you lose control of how it could be used and increase its vulnerablity to data theft, which can be used against you in unimaginable ways.
Additionally, if you are on a company-owned device and want to use text blasting to follow up with clients or prospects, your company may restict which services can have access to information that is stored on it. Dextr’s text blasting happens entirely only your own device and your data is never sent to us or any other services. Everything is secured with Apple, on your device, and your own iCloud account.
Text Blasts Are Ideal For:
- Event promoters: share event reminders, schedule changes, and thank-yous with attendees.
- Wedding planners: coordinate vendors or send guests timely details in individual conversations.
- Club presidents: invite members to meetings, runs, and volunteer days, then follow up afterward.
- Professors and instructors: update students about study groups, office hours, class cancellation, or course events.
- Coaches and community organizers: keep teams and volunteer groups informed without a crowded group thread.
- Nonprofit volunteer coordinators: fill shifts, share arrival details, and follow up with volunteers individually.
- PTA leaders: invite families to meetings and send school-event reminders.
- Real estate agents: invite interested contacts to open houses and follow up privately afterward.
- Alumni organizers: coordinate reunions and track replies without a class-wide thread.
- Conference hosts: announce schedule updates and check in with attendees after sessions.
- Small business owners: send timely updates to customers who have asked to hear from them.
Choose the audience through a tag, relationship list, Favorites, or event, and review the recipients before you send. The following sections show where to start each type of Text Blast.
Where You Can Start a Text Blast in Dextr
Start from the list of people you want to reach. Dextr uses that list to build the recipients, then takes you through the same template, message, and review screens.
From a Tag or Tag Group
Open Contacts and choose the tag icon. Tap it again to open the tag menu, choose a group, then select a tag such as running-club. Tap Text Blast above the contact list. For example, use a running-club tag to invite everyone with that tag to your next run.
Dextr tags can be individual or par of a tag group. To reach a whole tag group, choose “All” within that group instead of an individual tag. A group such as Fitness includes contacts tagged with any tag in that group; a contact with several matching tags is included once.
Learn how to build a reusable audience with tags and tag groups. The tagging guide shows how to add people, organize labels, and maintain the group before your next blast.
To build the tag’s audience faster, bulk-select contacts and add the tag to everyone at once. Review the tag list before starting your blast.
From a Relationship Type or Group
In Contacts, choose the colored relationship circle. Tap it again to open the menu, select a relationship group, then choose a type such as Classmates. Tap Text Blast above the list. Choose All within a group to include its relationship types.
This list uses each contact’s Relation to You. The Classmates example reaches 30 people classified that way. Connections between two other people do not add them to this list.
Need to classify several contacts as Classmates? Bulk-select them and set a shared Relation to You, then reopen the Classmates list before sending.
From an Event
Open an event from Home or Calendar and tap Text Blast beside Add Attendees. The recipients come from the event’s attendees, including both People Met and Other Attendees. Use this for a thank-you or follow-up after a meetup. See the Events walkthrough to create the occasion and build its attendee list before starting a blast.
Update the attendee list before starting. An event blast also makes the {{Event Title}} variable available, so you can include the event’s name without typing it into each message.
From Favorites
Open Contacts, choose the star to view Favorites, then tap the megaphone button. This uses your favorite contacts as the recipient list.
The recipient count may be smaller than the list count: Dextr excludes archived contacts, your own contact, the Dextr support contact, and anyone without a phone number that supports messaging. Check the count shown when you start the blast.
Example: Follow Up after a Meetup
Suppose Alex and Anna attended September Design Meetup and you want to invite each of them for coffee. Open that event and tap Text Blast.
1. Check Recipients and Choose a Template
Confirm that the banner names September Design Meetup and shows 2 People. Choose the example “Hey {{First Name}}, thanks for coming to {{Event Title}}!” and tap Continue. You can also select Compose New Message or one of Your Templates.
2. Write the Follow-Up
On Build Message, edit the template to say:
Hey {{First Name}}, thanks for coming to {{Event Title}}! Want to grab coffee next week and compare design notes?
Use the Insert Variable buttons for First Name, Last Name, or Event Title so the placeholder formatting stays correct. Tap Continue when your message is ready.
3. Review Each Personalized Message
On Review Text Blast, check the recipient names, phone numbers, and Preview Samples. Alex’s message begins “Hey Alex,” while Anna’s begins “Hey Anna,” and both include September Design Meetup. They will receive separate texts.
Dextr shows up to five preview samples and the number of additional recipients. Go back to edit the message if needed. To change who receives it, close the blast, update the source list or event, and start again.
4. Confirm and Send
Tap Confirm. In the Send Text Blast? alert, check the total—2 contacts in this example—then tap Send Text Blast. Dextr opens Apple Shortcuts, which asks for confirmation before sending.
Follow the prompts from Shortcuts or iOS. If a contact-count prompt appears, tap Done. After the Shortcut finishes and returns to Text Blast Sent!, tap Finish. Replies arrive in each person’s individual Messages conversation.
Save a Message for Next Time
In Build Message, tap Save As Template, enter a name, and tap Done on the keyboard. To change a saved template, edit its message and tap Update. Templates containing {{Event Title}} are available when you start from an event.
For a tag or relationship blast, use First Name or Last Name and write the occasion directly. For example: “Hi {{First Name}}, are you joining our running club on Saturday?”
Install Dextr today to start sending your first text blast!
