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Change telephone number in iMessage

My partner bought an iPhone in Friday asked for her old number to be transferred over to her new sim. She had to wait until today for that to happen so started using the ewes number while she waited.


She reqistered with iTunes etc. Now her number has changed iMessage does not recognise her number as an iphone. When she sends me a message it comes through as an iMessage but from her number that has been cancelled. When I send her a message it sends as a standard text message. The phone number listed in her settings is greyed out, how can it be changed?


Thanks.

iPhone 4, iOS 5

Posted on Oct 17, 2011 7:55 AM

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Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Nov 14, 2011 11:48 AM

I changed my network, and my mobile number recently. Had the old number in my iMessage preferences. All I needed to do, was turn iMessage off. Restart phone. Turn iMessage on.


No resetting or restoring.

107 replies

May 17, 2017 12:49 AM in response to Teh_Diver

I have face the problem as well. That's when change from Thailand SIM card to my Malaysia SIM card. The iMessage still showing the Thailand number. And activation failed.

The solution I found is to clear the cache of iPhone.

Normal reboot cannot clear it.

Turn off your iMessage and face time before proceed.


The steps as below:

1. Press power until the "slide to off" screen appear.

2. Release the power button and press the home button.

Hold it until it return back to the home screen. It may Flickr abit for some.

3. Your cache is clear. Now u can turn on your iMessage and it will show your current sim number. Activation should be in less than 1 minute.


Hopes this help.

Jul 29, 2017 10:02 AM in response to Superjim

Hello All,


Yes it is 2017 July, and problem still persist some people.

Solution came also not so easy to me. I have tried everything (having background in mac world), reading Apple information on subject, reading everyones suggestion and practical fixes, and trying this all, NOTHING HELPED.!


After two evenings playing with it (mean non stop and trying all posible things) - only thing has resolved my problem.


1. Sign out of imessages and facetime (but stay logged in with apple ID).

2. Change password of your apple id and log out all devices (there is option like that) - (not sure if that helped at the end can not say (but was done in due process).

3. log in to imessages with any other apple id, for ex: you sisters, mothers, brother - does not matter, just log in (aske them to do it) on your device. and log out on other devices form imessage and facetime manualy.


You will immediatley see new number apearing and all the id's of person you have logged in with.


4. Log out with alias ID from i messages and relogin with you apple ID to imessages and face time.

5. Log in (as you were logged out) on other devices - they will update info to new number (that worsk just fine).


Good luck.

Oct 27, 2017 1:45 AM in response to Superjim

I came here just to write this:


Nothing, absolutely no suggestions worked for me.


But one thing fixed it!


I live in Portugal,

It seems my SIM was blocked for some type of operations, like the one needed to activate iMessage. I imagine it’s something like Roaming, I don’t know.

I called the operator and she told me just that.


She also said that if I “charge” the SIM with extra cash on an ATM, I would have plafond to enable

iMessage.


I did that, a some time hours after I found iMessage activated.

Didn’t work right away (I thought it didn’t work)


That one was hard to figure out!

I hope it helps someone :-)

Oct 23, 2011 8:34 PM in response to Superjim

I have the same problem. Activated a new iPhoto with Verizon and ported over my old number from AT&T, however had connection problems while the port took a day to go through, and in the meantime, VZW assigned me a temporary number. That number is still associated with iMessage.


I have:

1. switched iMessage on/off & reverified

2. restored from iTunes

3. wiped all settings and restored as new

4. wiped all network settings.

5. removed sim card, restarted phone, and reset network settings (interestingly, imessage still has the wrong number associated with it with sim card REMOVED leading me to believe this is truly an apple server problem...


apple support has thus far been unhelpful.

Oct 31, 2011 2:28 PM in response to sixtwenty3dc

I solved this by completely wiping the iphone of all settings, (full reset) and setting up as a new iphone (not from a backup), and re-installing all my apps, setting up email accounts and connections, and only syncing contacts from icloud. After i did all this, i THEN turned imessage on, and now it only displays my apple ID in "receive messages at" and no phone number, either bad or good. i'm assuming things are fixed.


PERHAPS RELATED: during this process, resetting settings, switching imessage on/off, etc, i noticed that if i turned imessage off, all my messages would identify from the number that sent them, not the contact name. This was eventually corrected when i wiped clean and started over. However this weekend i had a connection problem in a low-signal area and couldn't send imessages, so i turned it off to be able to send as text instead. Once i turned imessage off, then on again, some messages in my messages list identified by numbers again, not their contact names.

Change telephone number in iMessage

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