IPad on iPad OS 15: Messages not syncing or sending SMS (iMessages work)

If you have an iPhone - and both iPad and iPhone are signed-in to iCloud with the same AppleID, to send SMS/MMS messages from your iPad you must explicitly enable Text Message Forwarding for your iPad on your iPhone...

On your iPhone:

Settings > Messages > Text Message Forwarding - set to ON - and explicitly enable your iPad from the list of devices.

Also ensure that Messages in iCloud is enabled on both your iPhone and iPad:

Settings > [Your Name / AppleID] > Messages - set to ON

Hi SteveW25561,

We see you're having trouble getting your SMS messages on your iPad. To clarify, have you also checked your Text Message Forwarding settings? You can learn how to do that here: How to forward SMS/MMS text messages from your iPhone to your iPad, iPod touch or Mac

We hope this helps you get things resolved.

Take care.

I had this problem and solved it after a couple days. I turned off Focus everywhere, until I have time to explore and figure out of what use it is to me. First, check your phone and make sure under settings for your Apple ID that your phone number shows up, along with your email addresse(s). Make sure your me contact information is up to date with your email addresses and phone number. Log out of and turn off Messages and turn off Facetime. Log out and turn them off on your iMac. Turn on wifi calling on your phone. Turn on Messages on your phone, and make sure to log in with your Apple ID. Then go to preferences and see if your phone is there and add any other Apple addresses you desire (I have variations of my Apple ID with .me, .mac, .icloud). Do the same with Facetime & preferences. Open Messages on your iMac, go to preferences and there you should see your phone number and email addresses. Be sure to choose to send and receive messages from your phone number as the default. Turn on Facetime on your computer and check the preferences there, too. Hope that helps. Took me 2 days to fix it on my iPhone and Macbook. Not sure how they managed to make an iPhone update screw up the settings for these apps.

I have spoken to Apple this evening regarding all the issues since the last 15.0 update. Apple is aware of all the different issues with texting, FaceTime, and all the other issues right now. Right now there is nothing that can be done until the next update. Apple stated they are working on the issues but do not know yet when this all will be fixed or when the next update will be sent out. I was asked to call back if any new problems/ issues arise. In the meantime there is nothing we can do to correct the issues I was informed while speaking to the Apple tech

IM Still waiting on the Senior Tech advisor to give me updates. I feel like he just dropped my case and when I reach out he says Engineers are working on it. I just want to point out that I have done every single troubleshooting technique and the features that are suppose to be turned on or off are in fact the correct settings to get non imessages across all the apple devices I have. ALL green messages will not sync across my devices. I will read a GREEN message on my iPhone and it will not be marked read on my computer, iPad, Watch. It will only be marked read on my phone, SO I have to go to each device and mark it as read. SAME will happen if I read a green message off my iPad, it will only be marked read on my iPad and I have to manually go to every device to open the message so it can be marked Read. Nothing that has been done with 3 apple senior advisors have given any resolution. Its been months and months of this. and it all started after the big IOS update. Its shocking that the apple engineer teams can seem to resolve this syncing issue. I will keep updating this thread with any updates I get. For all those who are having the same issue still, or coming here for the first time with this issue, Please open case with Apple. The more cases, the faster we can get this resolved!

This response was not helpful as both icloud and text messaging are turned on . It seems that regular green messages are not syncing over to all devices. I currently have 18 unread notifications on 3 devices: macbook, apple watch, ipad. My phone is the only device that doesnt show 18 notifications. There is a disconnect and this started AFTER the latest ios update.

I have had the same issue and the steps made no sense because the settings were all ON. I went through the process of turning them off and then on again and the problem persists. I powered off both devices, powered iPhone on first, then iPad. The synching is not working consistently. Messages that were on both suddenly were on only the iPhone alone, again. It seems to me to have something to do with the Focus settings. Of course, IDK.

I still do not have a resolution yet. I spoke to my advisor last week as the engineers needed to collect more data and we have a follow up call tomorrow (Tuesday 11/9/2021). Not sure if this will be a call to collect more data, or if there will be some actual troubleshooting taking place!

Please if you get any time, please call and ask to speak to a senior advisor, so all this can get documented and the engineers can really make some changes and send an update out.

My phone just updated to 15.2 tonight and suddenly it’s working well on my iPad.

Yep, I thought the same about this new focus feature and i checked my devices to make sure they were on the same setting, which is OFF.

The messages that are not syncing are only the regular (green, android, non imessage) ones.

Hopefully apple is getting a ton of complaints so they will fix it and send another update out. I dont think anything we can do, even with tech support that can resolve it.

I see everyone is having the same issue with texting from their Ipad. i am having the same issue after downloading the 15.0 update. The forward to Ipad is turned on! I see alot of people requesting and showing how to turn this option on in the settings on their phone. This is not the Issue for all!!! Everything is on and I only have the option now to send and receive texts from my phone only. Thanks Apple!

My Devices are still not syncing. I spent hours online trying to find a solution to the issues IM having. I have an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, MacBook Pro, which are clearly all cloud synced. However, my iMessages are not showing as all read and if I check a text/iMessage on my iPhone, my watch, iPad and MacBook all show as if I still have unread text. I have so many "unread" messages on 3 of my devices. Currently My computer shows 5 unread messages, my watch shows 10 and my iPad shows 18, while my phone shows 1 (even though i read this very message on my iPad). I have made sure 100 times that everything that is suppose to be turned on is on and forwarded. THIS all started after the update and yes, all the "unread" messages are not "iPhone/iMessage". I even uncheck my phone number in iMessages and rechecked it and the notifications are still showing up. Ive contacted apple support and now waiting to hopefully get someone on the phone to resolve this. its very annoying. NOT sure what else I can do other than erase/reset all 4 of my devices and start completely over.

I too am seeing syncing issues between devices after updating to iOS 15. Messages in the cloud and text forwarding is enabled for all devices (iPhone 13 Pro, iPad, Apple Watch, and three Macs).

Tonight I was texting with a green bubble friend on my iPhone. Most of my devices synced the full conversation, but one of my MacBook Pros (which I was using while texting on the iPhone) has only the messages received from my friend, but none of the messages that I sent. Conversations with this friend previously synced correctly (even on the MacBook in question and even since upgrading to iOS 15).