Why would a text message I’ve sent not be showing up in my messages?

[WellTidy]

I have an iPhone 13. I am absolutely certain that I sent a text to someone today (someone I’ve never sent a text to before) and yet it is not showing up in my messages. I can however see all of my other messages. I don’t know if all iPhones are the same but my messages screen shows messages I’ve sent as well as messages I’ve received.

any ideas where it could be please?

Is it possible that you could have used another messaging service, such as messanger or WhatsApp? There isn't any reason I can think of as to why it wouldn't show up unless you deleted the text thread after sending the message.

What’s your storage looking like?
When my iPhone was full, it starting doing all weird stuff like this.

Definitely not used WhatsApp or messenger. The contact is saved in my phone contacts so it must have been a text.

Stirage is fine, I have loads left. And I can send messages and WhatsApps to other people.

Its a mystery! I have sent the message twice. The first time I couldn’t see it in my messages I thought I just have accidentally not sent, and so I blamed it on my mistake and wrote a second message. But it’s too much of a coincidence to be me not making a mistake and not sending it when it’s happened twice.

If you click on 'filters' at the top left there are various folders for unknown senders, it's probably in one of those.

Curiouser and curiouser. The contact that I was 100% absolutely sure I’d saved is not there in my contacts!!

Oooooh. I am looking for a filters box. I can’t see it at the top of my messages. I can see ‘Edit’ at the top left and a new message compose icon on the top right of the messages screen. And then the messages sent and received are all listed below. Any thoughts as to where my filters could be please?

Are you on iOS 16? Mine looks like this at the top of the messages page -