iMessage not syncing across devices after macOS 26.0.1 update

For me, it mostly seems to be SMS/RCS messages that don't sync correctly. I chat with my brother daily and he's on an Android phone. I constantly have "unread" messages on either my phone or my MacBook depending on which device I've most recently interacted with him on.

I'm also having this issue with Tahoe 26.2, and have had no success with any of the suggested fixes.

An interesting part of this is that on my iPhone (15, running iOS 26.2), I can no longer seem to toggle Text Message Forwarding off.

Hopefully we get a solution soon.

Thank you so much for posting this. I thought the problem was related to upgrading from an iPhone 14 Pro to a 17 Pro, but the subject line from MacRumors was exactly my problem. I went through the steps as listed, and then I have Google Voice through a GFiber home phone device, and I can text SMS from that phone number and was able to quickly verify that reading it on my phone marked it as read on my Mac, Apple Watch, and iPad. Having the iPhone and Apple Watch not even being in sync bothered me the most since the Watch is so dependent on the iPhone. It appears my problem is solved.

I still had something like 16 unread SMS messages on my iPad. Going through the procedure does not cause those SMS messages received before doing the procedure to suddenly pick up the read status from the phone. Those SMS messages will still need to be manually marked as read. It appears it only affects SMS messages going forward.

Thanks again to @dcmoody for finding and posting it. My issue appears to be resolved.

Well I'm not in the apple eco system, but I have an M2 studio ultra and using iMessage. I have an issue where messages are not received, but it's weird. It almost varies by contact. One contact is instant and fine. Another only shows if I open their thread (no preview) and the other only pulls messages if I send.. I'm running Tahoe (most recent OS). I've contacted apple support and they're flummoxed by it. Done all the syncs, reset the messages folder in system. The works and it is still the same. It has been happening over the past few weeks.

That is the exact issue that brought me here. I am hoping to find a solution soon.

similar problem here - sporadic syncing with macOS Tahoe, but it seems that only RCS messages are affected. Which should be a different color than SMS messages or iMessage messages, imho.

Doesn't work for me anymore.

Thank you for this. Since purchasing a new M4 desktop and upgrading to Tahoe I have been searching for the answer to this problem for over 2 weeks and not even apple support online can answer it.

Hi dcmoody.

I tried your solution for two days, now. It seems to work, for now. We will see on the long if it keeps the road.

Thank you for your help.

This solution worked for me. Thank you for posting!

Tried this and now I can't get my phone number added back to messages.

Kenneth Close wrote:

For me, it mostly seems to be SMS/RCS messages that don't sync correctly. I chat with my brother daily and he's on an Android phone. I constantly have "unread" messages on either my phone or my MacBook depending on which device I've most recently interacted with him on.

You can try this. Log out of iMessage on all of your devices. Restart them. Log back in on your iPhone. When that has activated, log back in on the other devices. Make sure you have iCloud Syncing for Messages enabled on all of your devices. Settings>Your Account>iCloud>Messages. Then, on your iPhone, go to Settings>Apps>Messages and turn on Text Message Forwarding for your other devices. I've found this will often solve the odd messaging problem. But don't do it when you're in a hurry.

Set up iCloud for Messages on all your devices - Apple Support