iMessages not in sync between Mac and iPhone on Catalina

Question

mlemmert11 Author

Level 1

8 points

iMessages not in sync between Mac and iPhone on Catalina

Thanks much for any ideas anyone has!

Symptoms

If somebody sends me aN SMS text message, I received it on my iPhone, but do not receive it on my Mac iMessages app.

If I send an SMS from my iPhone, I do not see a copy of it on my Mac iMessages app.

If I send an SMS from my Mac to an iPhone/Mac user, I do not see a copy of it on my iPhone but when the person replies I do see the message in iMessages on my Mac.

Problem Start

This used to work. It stopped worked exactly after I logged out of my AppleID on my Mac (running Sierra) and iPhone and logged back in.

I upgraded my Mac Catalina, and my iPhone to 13.5.1 hoping it would solve this problem and it still doesn't work.

What I've Done

I checked my settings as described below and I tried logging out of my AppleIDs on both devices, doing a hard shutdown, rebooting, and logging into the AppleIDs again on both devices.

On my Mac, iMessages preferences, "Enable Messages in iCloud" is checked and I've tried clicking sync now.

On my iPhone, settings/iMessages is enabled and "Messages" is enabled in iCloud settings.

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Jun 3, 2020 7:41 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

jasonflying

Level 4

2,126 points

Jun 3, 2020 7:44 AM in response to mlemmert11

I sincerely hope the article below assists you:

https://www.iphonelife.com/content/how-to-sync-messages-iphone-to-mac-ipad

https://support.apple.com/guide/messages/change-imessage-preferences-messages-mac-icht39422/mac

Reply

Answer 2

mlemmert11 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jun 3, 2020 8:01 AM in response to jasonflying

Thanks so much for your quick and helpful reply!

For anyone else who find this thread, here is an addition tip:

On my iPhone, In Settings/Messages/Send Receive my screen looks a bit different from the screenshots in the articles, I assumed due to some changes in the the current IOS. I had two options on that screen:

*Use AppleID

*Use xxx-xxx-xxxx (my phone #)

I clicked use AppleID and then I saw my phone # and email address listed. An alert then appears on my Mac asking if I want to add my phone # to iMessages.

Once did that, my phone # appears here in iMessagse/preferences/iMessage in the "you can be reached for messages at" section.

Reply

iMessages not in sync between Mac and iPhone on Catalina

Similar questions