Q: Change telephone number in iMessage

Hi Natasha,

Steps;

- Get iPhone 4 (NOT 4S)

- Put your sim in

- Go to Settings/Phone

- Where it says "My Number"; you'll be able to click it and change the number (unlike in iPhone 4S)

- Press OK

- Take your sim out and put it back in your iPhone 4S

- Your number will be changed to whatever number you typed when your sim was in the iPhone 4

Let me know if you have any problems. :-)

I have similar issues and tried almost every means mentioned in this post and other posts. The final solution that really works for me is to request the carrier to issue a new SIM card for me and then everything returns to normal. Hope this helps.

Messages/received at/apple ID

Once you have tapped on apple ID ,sign out and sign back in...... Will reset for you with original apple ID email address unless you want add new address and it will automatically pick up the mobile number from your sim card.

OK… I went traveling again to Malaysia at last month, and changed my sim card for 3 weeks. No problems with changing my phone number in iMessage and FaceTime using my above technique. See post:

https://discussions.apple.com/message/16728799#16728799 above.

But when I returned home and put my Australian sim card into the iPhone, I had the problem everyone seems to have: can't change phone number in iMessage and Facetime. Activation would fail, and the in the iMessage settings, I could not change the phone number under "you can be reached for messages at:".

To clarify, I have an unlocked iPhone 4S 16GB. iOS 5.1.1.

I tried: changing Date & Time to automatically, restarting iPhone. USB plugging into computer to sync a few times. Didn't work.

The error I was getting was iMessage failed to activate, or something like that. iMessage was still working.

I was loathe to do a reset or get a new sim card, and decided to just live with it until iOS 6 was out. Maybe it was an iOS bug I thought. I could still send and receive messages, and was mostly doing this on my computer anyway.

But today, after 3 weeks in Australia, I turned on iMessage again, and it activated properly. I don't know how.

Aside from ignore the problem, the only thing I've done differently is change my iTunes Store Apple ID (linked to Australia) to the same one as my iMessage one. Normally, I use a different one (linked to USA). I seriously doubt this was even related, but that's the only thing I did. I had to do this temporarily to buy something from the iTunes Store Australia.

Again, once I could do this in iMessage, I could do so in Facetime as well (which was otherwise turned off).

I've had a torrid time with a similar situation. Got an iPhone 5 on a new network, new number, totally seperate from my 4S, which I'm going to sell on. Signed in to iCloud/iMessage with new phone, but could not for the life of me persuade it to get rid of the old phone number.

The answer is non-obvious until you hear it - sign out of FaceTime as well!!!

Sign out of iMessage and FaceTime on all devices you use them on then sign back in. FaceTime and iMessage use a common push notification basis so you must sign out of both on all your devices. Once I did that then my old number disappeared instantly!

Hope this helps.

This is the only fix. Serena87.. good work.. thanks

hi, i sold my iphone and for some reason my ipad is coming up as the blokes number that brought my iphone, i can see all his conversations and just been talking to his gf, how do i change that and put my original ipad number in?

i had tried all of the solutions in various combinations.

I contacted the Apple Store in Aberdeen and got the following:

• Go to Settings > Messages > Send & Receive. Click on Apple ID and choose sign out.
• Go to Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings
• Return to Settings > Messages > Send & Receive. Click on the Apple ID and sign in with you iCloud/iTunes account.

Follow this exact order and it worked first time for me.

My sister-in-law was having the problem described here. What was causing it?

Her old iPhone was still signed into her iCloud account.

After logging out of her old iPhone, she was able to have her number properly mapped to her new iPhone.

That worked for me. Appreciate the info.

Was having this issue and assumed it was a problem with the deactivation of T-Mobile's temp number having not fully completed or something.  After troubleshooting with T-Mobile tech support and then working with another fellow iPhone user (who found this support thread) it became clear that this is an issue where the Temp number was still being held onto by some of the settings in iMessage (Messages) and FaceTime.  Thanks Serena87!

The easiest thing that worked for me after trying all of this was dialing *228. I waited 30 seconds and it was all setup for me from there

i have an ipad (gen 3) and had an iphone.  set them both up using the same phone number even though the phone one was work and the ipad personal.

i've now had to change to blackberry (the new z10 is quite nice).

the issue is unless i disable the phone number associated with imessage and facetime i cannot receive texts from people using iphones on my blackberry.

how can i change the phone number on my appleid so that it is my personal one and not my work one allowing me to text friends, etc who have apple products using my ipad (as opposed to simply using the email feature)?

Thanks a million! I was just about to spend 40 mins on the phone with apple trying to figure this out :)

Okay, so here's the solution that worked for me, hopefully it will work for most of you too, especially for those who cannot change their "receive at" mobile numbers when changing SIMs between different country networks.

It's not at all abovious at first, but after rooting around in the iMessages settings on my iPhone, it did resolve my problem of a "sticking" phone number.

I had a UK number initially registered with iMessage, but then needed to swap to a Nepali one for a while.

You have to change a location setting in iMessage to reflect the home country of the network you are changing or have changed to.

To do so, go:

Settings > Messages > Send & Receive

At the top, click on your Apple ID (an email address). A menu pops up, select "Change Location" and you are presented with a long list of country names. Select the name of the country that your current SIM card was issued in or is native to.

Next go back to the initial Messages settings page and then slide off the 'iMessage" button, wait a moment or two, then slide back on again.

After hopefully a short while, the change is verified. Go back through "Send & Receive" and check to see if your current number is now registered under "You can be reached by iMessage at:"

Do this for every time you swap a SIM, especially across international boundaries.

If you have an iPad, do the same in there, and if you have a Mac or Macbook running the now native Messages app, try changing that setting too, it does have the option. Keeps everything properly synced up, no more split messages or missings sides of conversations when conversations are viewed from different devices.

Another tip, if you only want to receive iMessages sent to your phone number on your iPhone, then deselect all the other email addresses that are enabled to recieve iMessages on your device, leaving just the phone number. On other devices, select only the email address or addresses you want to be specifically reached at on that particular device. That way you can ensure that only certain addresses are are associated with certain devices, as in say if you only want work related iMessages going to you iPad, and more personal ones going to your iPhone etc.

So, just saying this is what works for me, hopefully it will for you too.

I'm going to cross-post the above every time I come across this question on this forum.