We've launched our new website, we would love to hear your thoughts & feedback.

Close X

iMessage Thinks I’m Having Two Separate Chats With The Same Person

posted on Jul 3rd 2012 at 7:08pm by Thomas Wong
iMessage separate conversation

Here's an iMessage issue I've had for a while, but have only recently considered writing about: having two separate conversation threads with a single person. According to my iPhone, I have two dads and two sisters and I am engaged in scattered conversations with each of them – and while this may be true for some people, it simply isn't the case for me.

What my iPhone seems to be doing is separating messages to e-mail addresses and phone numbers, and treating each of them as different conversations, despite the fact that they're clearly assigned to a single contact. This isn't how iMessage is supposed to work. I'm supposed to see one conversation with my sister in iMessage, regardless of whether I message her e-mail address or her phone number.

I've already checked to make sure that people can reach me at my cellphone number and my e-mail address when they send me iMessages (Settings -> Messages -> Receive At), and I've also double-checked that this is the case for my sister. I've also tried resetting my iPhone, toggling iMessage on and off, and sacrificing a small animal in Cupertino's name, but nothing has worked. My only recourse has been to delete the conversation thread based on my dad's and my sister's e-mail addresses and then send a single text to their phone numbers. But this isn't so much a solution as it is me giving up and cleaning up the mess that iMessage has left me. At least there's only one conversation for each person now.

If you know of a fix for this issue, please speak up in the comments (preferably by just one name – I've seen enough duplicates for the next little while).

 

  • D rey

    I was having this problem having conversations between my iPad and my iPhone. The fix I found is that you have to have your email listed as a point of contact on your phone and anyone else that you are using iMessage with. This way no matter what your device your talking from it will show up and act like its supposed to. I can text from my phone and send another text from my iPad and the conversation shows up on both devices but only as one converstation. You need to go into iMessage settings and add your email/apple ID as a point of contact as well as your phone number. This should fix the issue. But everyone you talk to needs to do this same thing or you’ll continue to have multiple contacts with the same person.

    • http://isource.com/ Thomas

      @D rey

      Tried this with my dad’s and my iPhone – didn’t work. Both set to e-mail, but still had two different consistent threads. Weird.

  • Keith

    The fix is iOS 6.

    iOS 6 allows you to tie together your phone number and any and all your email addresses together. Whether you are a sent an iMessage to your phone number or an email, all your devices will receive the message and won’t separate them based on which email or phone number it was sent to. Also, reading a message on one device will automatically mark it read on all your other devices.

    For iOS 5 there is no fix. Deal with it until iOS 6 is released.

    • http://hammerproject.com matt

      iOS 6 will only fix this issue on the iOS devices. If you use your Mac, for example, you will also need the OS X 10.8.2 update to fix iMessage from your Mac end and group the conversations/threads together.

  • forgot

    Your right, it’s not how it should work, but unfortunately that’s the way it does work for now. iOS 6 and Mountain Lion
    will finaly allow us to properly unify these (ie associate your iMessage phone number directly to your iTunes account). So, soon, even of someone sends a message to your phone number via iMessage, you’ll still be able to see and respond to it from your iPad or Mac via Messages.

    • Rodney

      I hope that is not entirely true. Right now I have my iTunes account on my iPhone, iPad, my wife’s iPhone, and my kids’ iPods so we can all share my music movies and apps. But I can send them each their own iMessage. I hope you are wrong in that I can have my iTunes account on several devices but have different email addresses for iMessages.

      • forgot

        I’ll clarify a little more, sorry for the confusion. iOS 6 allows for you to login with separate iTunes and iCloud accounts. I mistakenly stated that everything is tied to your iTunes account, when its rely the iCloud account. You’ll still be able to use one account across all your devices, and iCloud allows you to specify which email address you receive your iMessages on. So, each person in your family can receive a message on their device, provided they have a separate iCloud login and email address tied to iMessage. If they have a phone number they associate to iMessages, that will allow them to be received on all devices that can receive an iMessage.

  • http://myluckylottonumbers.com/ Best Website Ever

    My partner and I stumbled over here different web page
    and thought I may as well check things out.

    I like what I see so i am just following you.

    Look forward to checking out your web page again.

  • Rachel R

    Hey!

    I had the same issue! I think I resolved it by having them change the Caller ID setting, not the “receive messages at” setting. So each tab, for you, is to their iMessage email and their phone number. To them it shows up as the same, because they recieve messages from you from one address. Try composing a new message and typing their name in – you have two options. email and phone number, both iMessage options. Each option should be for a different tab. If you go into their Message settings and change the caller ID to their Apple ID, I think it should resolve? Unless of course you send an iMessage to their number instead of their email.

    Let me know if this works for you? It’s been working for me.

    (Would you mind deleting the previous comment I posted? Didn’t mean to post my full name. Thanks!)

    • http://isource.com/ Thomas

      Interesting, Rachel. I’ll give it a shot now and get back to you.

  • John

    Ok. I am lost. I have the lone iphone 4 in the house. I also have an ipad. My daughter just got an ipod touch 4th gen. We all use 1 itunes account and everything is under my username. Everything was fine until today after i updated my phone and the ipad. By this i mean i was getting my own imessages and Haley was getting her own on her ipod. Now when she sends a message it shows on my phone as me sending to her recipient and when she receives a reply i get that too! What on earth do i need to do now to make sure she is the only one seeing and receiving her imessages and get this straightened out! Sorry if this was covered above but i am kind of lost

    • http://www.onQpiano.com Melissa

      I’m having the same problem as you John. My husband and I share an iTunes account and never had a problem until we updated to iOS6. Any tricks or solutions are very much appreciated!

  • Ashley

    Having the same problem since I updated to ios6. Now I am getting any iMessage from my iPhone & my daughter’s iPod twice. Would love to know how to fix it.

  • Cody

    Anyone will tell you that I am a hardcore Apple Fan, however, sometimes they lack in the instructions area. For a while now I have had a problem with iMessages being sent from my MacBook. I could send an iMessage from my phone with no problem and my friend would receive it from my phone number however, the problem would arise when I would send a iMessage from my MacBook to to the same friend and a new thread would be created, so in essence she would have two different messages for me, one from my phone number and one from my email. After numerous attempts of contacting Apple Customer Service with no avail, I eventually figured it out on my own. I did aggrate some friends because I had to send messages relentlessly. In the end I found a solution and here are the instructions.

    You’re going to go into iMessage on your computer, go to messages in the top left, click on preferences and then click on accounts. Look under “you can be reached for messages at” you should see your email and or your phone number.

    If you do not see your phone number you need to add it to your account at this site. “https://appleid.apple.com/” click on manage your Apple ID and then sign in. After you sign in you will go to another screen and on your left you’ll see a list of choices click on phone numbers. Add your phone number and click save changes. It usually takes a few seconds for your iMessage account to update. Completely quit iMessage in the toolbar and then reopen it and go back into messaging preferences and then accounts.

    After that has been done your phone number should now be added to the “you can be reached for messages at” section. Click on your phone number and then uncheck your email address.

    Then go into your iPhone settings, messages, then scroll down to send and receive. Uncheck any email, only your phone number should have a checkmark, if your phone number does not have a checkmark… check it. You should receive a pop-up on your iPhone saying so-and-so’s MacBook is now using “insert phone number here” for iMessages.

  • Guest

    I have this issue and I don’t know what to do

  • Mkuney

    Goto Settings-Messages-(Click on) Send & Receive it will say – You can be reached by iMessage at: Deactivate each email listed and leave the check mark that says you can be reached by your phone number only.

  • Clay

    I have this issue and notice it more in iMessage on my computer. Would love to find a way to combine the conversations or to tell iMessage that they’re the same person without deleting part of the conversation.

  • IronMan

    I have the same issue but I don’t want to remove my email addresses from messages options. Anything else?

  • Christian Maus

    This is a shit implementation by Apple.
    iMessage was invented on iOS.
    But Messages on Mac does the thing way better.

    On Messages for Mac, you can choose within on single conversation which number or e-mail address of that person you want to send to.

    I already notified Apple this is shit.

  • TWH

    any idea to fix?

    • http://isource.com/ Thomas

      @TWH

      As of iOS 6.0.1, I still don’t know a fix for this. It still happens.

  • leef

    mkuney was close. if you’re getting multiple messages most likely they are sending from different devices (ie, iphone and ipad). you want them (the person with two messages) to go under settings/imessage/send & receive and make sure all devices are set to start conversations from the same phone number (or email whichever you prefer) but all devices need to be the same to preven multiple conversations when they use a different device.