iMessage NOT syncing across iPhone and MacBook Air

Hi there, ToddAfrica.

It appears that messages on your iPhone aren't appearing on your MacBook Air. You're able to send iMessages, but you can't send SMS/MMS messages from your Mac, and we're glad to provide assistance.

How to forward SMS/MMS text messages from your iPhone to your iPad, iPod touch or Mac - Apple Support -- On your iPhone, go to Settings > Messages > Send & Receive. On your Mac, open Messages and choose Messages > Preferences > iMessages. Make sure that both devices are signed in with the same Apple ID. Then, on your iPhone, go back one screen and check Text Message Forwarding to make sure your Mac has been selected. If it is, deselect your Mac and restart your iPhone. Once it's back to the Home screen, turn Text Message Forwarding back on for your Mac and test the issue.

Feel free to get back to us with any questions or problems you may have.

All the best.

I think I may have solved it.

iPhone>Setting>Messages>Switch OFF iMessage>Switch back on>Select Send & Receive Addresses

Mac>Message Preferrences>iMessage Tab> Sign Out/Sign In>Select where you can be reached at

After this I am able to initiate new Texts on iPhone and it syncs with Mac. Older messages have not synced. Crossing my fingers this continues to work.

So I had this problem too. Had the issue more with text messages, not iMessages not syncing. They would be marked as read on my iPhone but not on any other devices. However, if I read them on my watch, M1 Macbook Pro, or iPad, they would be marked as read. I spoke with Apple Support, who had me try many different things, including resetting network settings, resetting my watch, turning iCloud off and on, off and on, restarting, etc.

What fixed this for me was going to my phone, going to Settings --> General --> Reset --> Reset All Settings.

iPhone rebooted twice, went back into settings, iMessage, logged in, and has not had this issue since. Text messages are automatically read on all devices, whether read on my iPhone, Watch or Mac.

Hopefully, this helps someone else!

Hi, I had this same problem and I switched messages back on in my iCloud settings which seemed to work for me.

On my iPhone:

Settings > Apple ID > iCloud > Toggle Messages "on" (Mine was previously off, even though it was never turned off in the first place)

Note: this did not get the previous messages to re-sync on my computer, but I am now receiving all new messages on both my phone and computer.

Hope this helps!

I have been struggling with this for months and nothing seemed to work, but I think I have solved it.

On the iPhone:

Settings>Send & Receive> Make sure you are logged into your icloud account & phone number here. I only had my phone number listed here.

On Mac make sure you have your phone number and apple idea as well:

In messages:

Preferences> Login with Apple ID, and check Enable messages in iCloud

I realize you sent this message a year ago but it seems there hasn't been many responses about ways to fix it. I had the same problem happen to me about a week ago and I just realized how big of a problem it is today. I tried what was suggested through the chat above, however it did not work with me. What I did is a realized that the problem was coming from my Mac computer so I opened up the settings and started clicking a whole bunch of things to try it out. I ended up with a solution lol. If you open Settings>Apple ID>Name,Phone, Email>Reachable At. Here add your phone number because my computer only had the email linked to my Apple ID. When I added the phone number and verified it it automatically added it to iMessages. Then when I was testing sending and receiving messages from my computer it worked out! Good luck!

The following worked for me. On your iPhone, go to settings > messages > send & receive. Here, I would see my phone number selected (tick mark). Underneath, something like "use your apple id to sent/receive". Press on it. Have your mac open, on it accept the pop-up message asking something about using your appleid for iMessage. After you're done, if you go on your iPhone to settings > messages > send & receive, you now can choose whether you want to send messages from your phone number, appleid email address, and/or iCloud address.

Hey, ToddAfrica!

I had the very same "issue" for the past three or four days until just a few minutes ago. I hadn't changed anything, either, but I was "out of sync" with my MacBook and my iPhone, SO:

I went to Messages > Prefs > iMessage.

In the second "section" down, under "Apple ID: xxxxxxxx. Enable Messages in iCloud," which should be checked, there's this one:

"You can be reached for messages at:"

my phone number wasn't checked, and I made sure that that AND my @icloud.com addy was also checked, and everything works again.

Hope your issue was that minor.

Best of luck!

One of the most noted causes for iCloud based syncing problems involves 'different user accounts'. This is caused when using different Apple IDs and/or Passwords.

Curiously, I just resolved an iCloud syncing problem with Messages (several texts were not syncing) because my phone number was being used by Messages on my desktop and a corresponding email was being used on my iPhone. The data was correct, but non-matching user identifiers were causing the problem.

After turning off iCloud, on my phone (and saving content such as calendars and contacts first), I then turned it back on and was prompted with a phone number vs email ID window pop up. I changed it so that my phone number is now utilized on both, and was prompted to use only a phone number -OR- only the same email address, on both devices! That's it. Solved! You can add another email if you like but the main one (at the top of the list) is what is used to identifiy the user and to sync accounts if a match occurs.

For the record, I did not enter this ID data into the Apps initially (other than Apple ID). It was extracted by Apple from my Apple ID information as well what I used in Messages and Facetime! The solution is even harder to find when Apple fails to note that most people will use their phone number in Facetime and their email in Messages. It's NOT a user error in other words...

This happens occasionally when there is an OS X and/or an IOS upgrade. I have an iPhone 12 Pro Max, an iPad and an iMac. The iMac usually has the problem. Yesterday I think that I found the solution. The iMac has two things that need to be set to on for syncing BOTH messages and FaceTime. The key is that you need to have your email address and your phone number listed in the setting “You can be reached by FaceTime at”.

okay first time I ever reply to one of these but I started by dong this

" iPhone>Setting>Messages>Switch OFF iMessage>Switch back on>Select Send & Receive Addresses

&

Mac>Message Preferrences>iMessage Tab> Sign Out/Sign In>Select where you can be reached at"

I still had the same issue so I I turned off my Apple Watch and I noticed that it solved the issue and everything was synced. Hope that works.

I finally got mine to sync between iPhone 12 Pro and a Mac Mini. The only thing I changed was selecting all of the accounts under "You can be reached at:" on both the iPhone and Mac. 

Previously I had only a few selected. Once I added all accounts (it was adding the Mac email addresses I don't use, @iCloud.com, @me.com) it synced. Still pretty sketchy....I noticed a few texts didn't sync if they were from people using devices other then iPhones. but overall it updated. 

This has been an issue under multiple OS's for me so nothing new. Thanks

I noticed this with messages received from SMS. I have an iPhone 11, an iPad Pro 10.5 inch, an iPad (6th gen), an Apple Watch SE, a Mac mini 2018, and a Mac mini M1 2020. All devices are up to date on their respective OS's give or take a minor version. What was happening is I would receive an SMS on the 2018 mini, but not on the M1 mini. As far as I know all the other devices also received the message. Both Mac minis are identically configured. Going to the Mac Messages Preferences and selecting iMessages tab and clicking Sync Now mostly did nothing, except once, where ONE of the missing messages sync'd, but not the other four. So I tried the recommendation to go to my iPhone and enable all the "You can receive..." entries, and voila! All the messages sync'd up with the M1 mini. Don't know why or what causes it, but syncing across all devices has alway been a bit hit-or-miss with Apple. Anyway... thanks for the suggestion.

My issue was messages not syncing with non iOS devices and intermittent sync with iOS.

iPhone>Setting>Messages>Switch OFF iMessage>Switch back on>Select Send & Receive Addresses

Mac>Message Preferrences>iMessage Tab> Sign Out/Sign In>Select where you can be reached at (should be your phone number)

Make sure Message forwarding is correctly configured to your MacBook.

Most important: After making changes to both the devices, reboot each of them. I made these config changes but nothing worked until I power cycled both iPhone and Mac. Now works like charm.

On the Mac, going to the Messages app, then Preferences -> iMessage tab, signing out and signing back in again worked for me. I have seen this a few times, good to know what really fixes it.