Mac not syncing message history.

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Mac not syncing message history.

On my mac, I haven't opened the messages app in a few weeks. Earlier this week, I opened it and it contains messages up until the last time that I used the messages app (a few weeks ago), and it contains all messages from the day that I opened the messages app (earlier this week) until now.

It is missing all of the messages for the few weeks that I didn't use the app on my mac. I can't get the app to sync those weeks of messages.

I've tried everything I could find online. I've signed out of my apple account on my phone and on my mac and then re-signed in. I've checked to ensure text forwarding was setup. I've restarted my mac. I've confirmed that my phone and mac are using the same account. None of that made a difference.

It's properly syncing any new messages, but I need it to sync old messages.

I should mention that I had some success for a little bit by quitting the messages app and then re-opening it over and over. Each time it would sync just a few more messages. I did this about 100 times and was able to get it to sync like 2 days worth of messages. After a while, this method stopped working though.

MacBook Pro with Touch Bar

Posted on Nov 7, 2021 9:43 AM

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Answer 1

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Cscaudill3 Author

Level 1

21 points

Nov 8, 2021 4:29 PM in response to Cscaudill3

I found the solution for my situation. In case this helps anybody in the future, here's what I needed to do.

When I went to Settings > Messages, I could see that iMessage was turned on, so I assumed that all of my messages were being sent to iCloud. Also, all of my new messages were showing up on my Mac, but not the old ones. All signs seemed to indicate my messages were in the cloud.

What I found was that when I went to Settings > select apple ID at the top > iCloud, in the list I had Messages turned off.

To sync the message history, toggle on Messages from this screen and then select iCloud Backup and choose Back Up Now. When you run that backup, it will force your message history into iCloud.

That's not the end though. Next, open the Messages app on your mac, and go to Messages > Preferences > iMessage and select Sync Now. This will pull all of the messages from iCloud.

TL;DR - Go to iCloud in your phone settings and makes sure Messages is turned on. Force a backup to push all messages to iCloud. Then, on your mac, select Sync Now in the Messages app.

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