What better way to ring in the New Year or celebrate a holiday than to send fireworks on your iPhone or iPad? With the Messages app, you can send iMessage effects along with your text. These iPhone text effects include balloons, confetti, and fireworks. Here's how to send fireworks on iPhone.

Why You’ll Love This Tip

Celebrate the New Year with friends with iMessage effects like iPhone fireworks, balloons, and confetti.
Add flair to your messages with animated iMessage effects like iPhone fireworks for the Fourth of July and New Years' Eve.

How to Make Fireworks on iMessage

System Requirements

This tip was performed with an iPhone 17 Pro running iOS 26. Find out how to update to iOS 26.

Did you know that you can include iMessage effects inside iPhone text messages? In order to send fireworks on iPhone, the recipient also needs to have an iPhone and be using iMessage. This is easy to figure out, since blue message bubbles indicate that the recipient is using iMessage, while green bubbles mean the recipient is using SMS or RCS messaging. Unfortunately, SMS and RCS messages cannot use iMessage effects, including fireworks. If you are using an iPhone but notice all of your bubbles are green, even when texting other iPhone users, you might not have iMessage turned on yet. Now, here's how to send a text with effects that look like fireworks on iPhone:

Open the Messages app, and start a new message or tap an existing conversation.
Write your text message as usual. Then, instead of tapping the blue arrow to send the message, touch and hold the arrow for at least a second.
A new Send with effect screen will pop up. Tap Screen at the top of the page.
Swipe from the right side of the screen to the left to scroll through the different screen effects until you get to the fireworks option.
Tap the blue arrow button to send.

Note

You can trigger the fireworks effect automatically when you send a text saying, "Happy New Year!" This works any time of the year, so feel free to confuse your friends whenever you'd like. Unfortunately, it does not work with

And that's how to text fireworks on iPhone! As you can see, iPhone text fireworks are just one of the many fun iPhone texting effects available. There are currently eight special iMessage effects you can choose from. The steps are the same to use each one, so play around and have fun with these iPhone message tricks! Be sure to check out our free Tip of the Day for more great iMessage tips and tricks.