iMessage NOT syncing across iPhone and MacBook Air

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.

Even after my initial success with the "You can receive..." entries (see my 9/9/21 posting), I still had this happen between iPhone and Mac. So this trick is still not 100% effective. I think this is some bug in the complex interactions between devices and iCloud and Apple just needs to investigate more and keep improving it.

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.

Yesterday I changed my Apple ID password on my MacBook Air 2017. Multiple windows from Apple kept opening asking me to enter my new password which I did. Today I realized that my IPAD and my MacBook are not receiving text messages which they alway did. I can send from my MacBook but not receive. Please advise.

macOS High Sierra Version 10.13.6

macOS Monterey Version 12.0.1

iPhone Version 15.0.2

The "Text Messaging Forwarding" had solved mine:

> iPhone > Settings > Messages > Text Messaging Forwarding

Thank you.

Well, I updated the software for my Apple Watch yesterday. Messages stopped synching. Now I have 3 devices to fiddle with, and I don't know which setting (or combination of settings) on which device will fix things. After over an hour, I gave up.

I hate to say this, but if iTunes wouldn't launch until you fiddled with multiple settings on multiple devices for hours, it would get fixed *ASAP*. If it didn't get fixed, heads would probably roll. iTunes brings in considerable revenue. The Messages app doesn't. It seems like Messages has therefore gotten sent to the bottom of the priority list. It clearly isn't regularly tested when there are OS updates. If Messages only works sporadically, it feels like Apple has decided that it's no big deal. It's only texting.

This is a constant issue. Every update sync gets out whack. I am losing messages, contacts and my devices are always out of sync. This is been happening since mobile me and beyond frustrating that over a decade of complaints and Apple does not consider an issue. Frustrated for at least decade. This is not only with message but across the board with data.

dpaik: THANKYOU! I did what you suggested and it worked. I am now receiving text messages on my MacBook Air and iPhone. It used to work seamlessly until one day it stopped. I've been trying to figure it out for some time. It was driving me crazy. I even updated my iCloud storage, thinking this may have been the problem. I can now receive text messages on my laptop.

Messages stopped syncing to my Mac on Nov.7, 2021

I've tried all the things.

Like most others, I can send from the Mac, but not receive. I don't have time or patience to deal with this issue anymore.

I concede. There are no solutions. Thanks for verifying that for me.

As stupid as it sounds, I got it to work this way. And BTW, I do NOT have messages enabled in iCloud.

Delete off your computer the messages that wouldn't send.

Sign out of icloud on both devices.

Turn off imessage in the messages setting of the phone.

On your iPhone, delete "test messaging forwarding to devices" under the General > Messages

Close apps.

Restart all devices (saw that coming, eh?).

Sign in and enable imessage on phone.

Sign in on other devices.

That's the problem. It SEEMS to resolve, only to happen again on a different device. I think there's just basic problems with Messages across platforms. It seems like each device keeps its own copy of the "conversation" (not held on any single cloud server), so if any device "misses" a message (or two, or three) then, too bad, that conversation is now a subset of the full conversation. It's very frustrating. I might be wrong. In any case, it's a mess.

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!

I agree. Before the update, I had no syncing issues with Messages.

There are other problems caused by the last update. Editing a text is no longer as easy as before. Nor is zooming into photos.

[Edited by Moderator]

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!