Couldn’t you copy them into a reply, then delete the bits you don’t want to keep? I’m possibly misunderstanding though.

Either way, yeah it’s odd that we can’t select individual bits of text.

Pro-tip on Android at least - if you open your Recents, you can manually select text that was on your screen even if it wasn’t selectable at full screen.

As for the reason why: text selection is a pain to program. It’s simple, except when you need to be able to deal with line breaks, right to left text, vertical text, vertical right to left text, and variable width stuff like emoji and UTF-8 combinator characters. Copying all text is easy, selecting part of it requires a bunch of annoying algorithms nobody wants to test and debug.

Selecting text on a web browser is a major pain for this reason.

To copy part of a message, I just swipe up to the app selector because on recent Android versions you can directly tap and hold text from the recent app switcher to select it:

For stuff that still doesn’t allow better 2FA than SMS I can usually directly copy the code from the notification, but luckily I rarely have to do that.

telegram allow it.

for the others you have to copy everything somewhere and than select the part you want.

I use Textra on Android and I can select which parts of a message to copy. I’m using the paid version and have for years, so I’m not sure whether that’s a standard feature or premium. The day Messages stopped letting me color-code each conversation was the day I quit using it; I can’t tell you how many times each person being a distinct color has saved my ass from texting the wrong stuff to the wrong person.

Newer stock Androids let you edit what you copy. So you can copy the whole message then delete the parts you don’t want. Still annoying

For iOS you can screenshot and then use the ocr feature to select the text

At least on modern Android you can long press on most text and get that little zoomed in indicator (so you can more easily adjust the selection)

I remember that being stuck in iOS limbo for years, glad we have that but yeah it’s not super consistent right now copying

it is frustrating. I currently use a feature on Google pixel 7 pro that allows me to select text anywhere on an app even if it’s in an image when you’re in the app history drawer

Same with messaging app on iOS

Its super strange, especially since Android originally allowed it. When I get an authentication code sent the notification gives an option to copy it, and some apps just automatically input it if I leave the app open when the message is recived.

This is more of a support question than a discussion question. Removing per rule #5.

Copy the message when the box pops up with the copied message, tap on that and you can then edit it further.

If your phone doesn’t do that then it’s time to custom ROM or get a new one