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Recently bought an iPhone 12 and, over the past week, any text messages to or from my sister are hidden/invisible. I get hers and she gets mine, but I can only see them if I look her up in Contacts and click on the text message icon. I have no idea how I did this, and searching the community and the internet hasn’t turned up an answer. Help, please!
iPhone 12, iOS 14
Hello CaliforniaCatLady,
Thanks for asking the Apple Support Communities about messages from your sister.
1. Did you inadvertently block your sisters number or Apple ID or is her number not saved as a contact? Check here: Block phone numbers, contacts, and emails on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support
Filters, then tap Unknown Senders. You won't get notifications for these messages."2. Is hide alerts enabled for that thread? Use Messages on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support
3. If you still have issues after adjusting this settings above and restarting, check the troubleshooting here: If an app on your iPhone or iPad stops responding, closes unexpectedly, or won’t open - Apple Support
4. Lastly, you can delete the message thread, and start over. See if there is a hiccup with that thread only: Use Messages on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support
"To delete a single message:
.
, then tap Delete Message. If you want to delete all messages in the thread, tap Delete All in the upper-left corner. Then tap Delete Conversation."Cheers.
Hello CaliforniaCatLady,
Thanks for asking the Apple Support Communities about messages from your sister.
1. Did you inadvertently block your sisters number or Apple ID or is her number not saved as a contact? Check here: Block phone numbers, contacts, and emails on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support
Filters, then tap Unknown Senders. You won't get notifications for these messages."2. Is hide alerts enabled for that thread? Use Messages on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support
3. If you still have issues after adjusting this settings above and restarting, check the troubleshooting here: If an app on your iPhone or iPad stops responding, closes unexpectedly, or won’t open - Apple Support
4. Lastly, you can delete the message thread, and start over. See if there is a hiccup with that thread only: Use Messages on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support
"To delete a single message:
., then tap Delete Message. If you want to delete all messages in the thread, tap Delete All in the upper-left corner. Then tap Delete Conversation."Cheers.
I figured it out. Somehow I “pinned” her to the top of my texts (didn’t even know that was an option). Didn’t even realize it was unusual because I’m new to iPhone and we have the same initials and same last name, so I just thought the icon (with her/my initials and last name underneath) was mine. Doh!
Thank you, Eric, for such a thorough response. Unfortunately none of the steps fixed my problem. The only one I didn’t try was deleting my message app because I wasn’t sure if that would also delete all my messages.
Hello CaliforniaCatLady,
Thanks for going through the troubleshooting steps. The Messages app can't actually be deleted. Do you mean you did not try deleting the message thread because you were afraid of losing all the messages in that thread?
Yes, if there is an issue in that message thread, deleting it can resolve it, but you will lose the messages in that thread only. Sadly, without knowing if it's in that individual thread or somewhere else, isolation is going to be difficult.
If you did delete the thread and started a new thread with that person and the same issue is still occurring, the next thing you want to try is to work with Apple Support to investigate the operating system: Contact - Official Apple Support
Thanks and have a wonderful day.
The case of the missing text messages
