Texts from a person via iMessage are coming from both their email and phone number separately

Since I upgraded my iPhone 15 Pro to iOS 18 a few months ago on the public beta(now off the beta and the issue persists), receiving messages from just one contact have been messed up, but only seen in notifications on the phone. My Macbook Air M2 doesn't have this notification issue nor does my Apple Watch series 9.

When receiving texts from this specific person through iMessage the notification on the phone states it is coming from 2 of the same person through a group chat, one saying "Maybe: FIRST LAST"(coming from their Apple ID I assume) and the other saying the name I have set for them in contacts.(screenshot below)

I have tried many things to solve this problem on my own:

Deleting and re-adding the contact
Changing settings to only send and receive messages from either email or phone number(neither fixed it)
Disabling iMessage and using SMS
Removing email or phone number from contact*

*About the last solution I tried, this one came with many other issues. In the contact of the person causing the issue, I have both their email and phone number listed. If I were to remove the email, the problem with the notification would be fixed, but all message history would disappear and in iMessage the contact would appear blank with no name or picture, just the phone number as the name. The same thing happens when I remove just the phone number.

I would also like to add that my contact for them on all their devices has no issues, its just on my end.

This issue causes no problems when trying to contact them in any way, but it just looks weird and has become quite annoying to look at over time and I want it fixed. If anyone has a follow up question or an idea for a solution, please reply😃. Thanks.

iPhone 15 Pro, iOS 18

Posted on Sep 25, 2024 8:45 PM

Top-ranking reply

thebagman

Level 1

14 points

Posted on Feb 8, 2025 12:26 PM

I FIXED IT! I hope it works for you.

I was having the same issue, all of a sudden receiving texts from my wife showing her name and iCloud email. And then the same thing started happening with texts from my Mom. Sometimes it would show their phone number and name. Or sometimes I just saw their phone number and email, but no name. Drove me insane for months! It wasn’t happening on their end though, just messages to me.

I read all the threads and I threw everything I could at this to try to fix it without deleting years of text messages and then today I stumbled on where I think the bug is.

I think it stems from NOTES collaborations - and likely from NOTES that I shared with them in the past via iMessage where I invited them to collaborate. So I went into the NOTES app and found every “shared” note and disabled sharing or stopped collaborating.

Then I had my wife sent me a text and it only said her name and I almost cried. And then my mom sent me a text and it worked there too.

I really hope that is the fix for you all.

I’m guessing the update bug has something to do with using iMessage to initiate a collaboration/share for a note in NOTES (or maybe even another app), and then the collaboration connects with their iCloud account, but the invite went through their phone number. So now iMessage is treating the entire thread as a group message. That’s my guess.

I just hope it works for you. Good luck!

View in context

Texts from a person via iMessage are coming from both their email and phone number separately

Similar questions