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iMessages sending group chat as MMS

I have iMessages turned on, and am messaging 2 users with iPhones. When I message them individually, we use iMessages. However, when I message them in group chat, it turns to MMS group chat and one of the recipients doesn't receive the messages. How can I force iMessages to send this as a group chat and not as MMS?

Posted on Oct 23, 2021 6:06 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Nov 1, 2021 5:05 AM

Hi Sharon,


Thanks for taking the time to respond. Actually, I did find a way to force it. I messaged the two people, plus a third person who also has an iPhone. When the third person "left" the chat, I was able to message the two iPhone users in an iMessage group.


My sense of this is that there is a glitch in iMessenger where if you sent an MMS group chat at some point, iMessage will always default to MMS even if iMessage is available.


Starting a 3-person chat and asking the third person to leave is a work around, but hopefully Apple will solve the underlying bug so that iMessenger defaults to sending in iMessenger when available, and not get stuck on MMS for all future messages.


Thanks.

2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Nov 1, 2021 5:05 AM in response to Sharon_419

Hi Sharon,


Thanks for taking the time to respond. Actually, I did find a way to force it. I messaged the two people, plus a third person who also has an iPhone. When the third person "left" the chat, I was able to message the two iPhone users in an iMessage group.


My sense of this is that there is a glitch in iMessenger where if you sent an MMS group chat at some point, iMessage will always default to MMS even if iMessage is available.


Starting a 3-person chat and asking the third person to leave is a work around, but hopefully Apple will solve the underlying bug so that iMessenger defaults to sending in iMessenger when available, and not get stuck on MMS for all future messages.


Thanks.

Oct 24, 2021 10:23 AM in response to Rou7036

Hi Rou7036,


Thanks for reaching out about sending iMessages to a group. We can help with this. We see you came from this article: Send a group text message on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.


There isn't a way to force iMessages to send. The message will attempt to send as an iMessage, and if it can't go through for some reason, it will send as an MMS.




Take care.

iMessages sending group chat as MMS

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