iMessage sends messages from email address instead of phone number

Question

iMessage sends messages from email address instead of phone number

OK, so this is more one of my findings that will hopefully help others rather than a question.

Basically I have found a lot of people that are having this issue. They upgrade to iOS 5 and turn on iMessage send their first message and boom... The person receiving the message is all confused because they just got a text from an email address.

Based on my discoveries this happens because when you upgrade to iOS 5 if you were logged in with your Apple ID on either the phone in iOS 4 or in iTunes your phone will automatically log back in when you have restored the phone (Also if you log in during the iOS 5 setup). And when this happens iMessages gets bound to your email address, not the phone number because that takes a bit more time to activate.

To fix this it is very simple. You need to first go into Settings > MEssages > Receive At now tap on your Apple ID at the top of the page. Then tap Sign Out.

Once you have signed out you should see in the current page you can only see your mobile phone number as a receive at option. Now you can leave it as this and just receive iMessages to your number. However if you want to receive from your email aswell you can log back into your Apple ID at the top of the screen. As you have singed in to this after the phone number was bound you will find that the phone number is now the ID that is used when sending texts.

If this doesn't work you will want to check what your Caller ID is set to (it's at the bottom of the iMessage settings page) and make sure it is set to your phone number.

I hope this helps anyone with this issue.

I have raised this as an issue with AppleCare Support team and I have provided them with the solution. I figured this one out myself 🙂.

iPhone 4S, iOS 5.0.1, Black 32GB

Posted on Dec 13, 2011 12:02 AM

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Answer 1

Dec 13, 2011 12:18 AM in response to Aperture_Monkey

Thought I would add some pictures of the right places.

This is the messages section of settings where you can see that iMessage is turned on and your Receive at address this may say "2 Addresses"

This next screen is what you see inside the Receive At page when you are logged in with your Apple ID. I have obviously deleted my number and email address just imagine that they are next to the writing.

When you tap on the Apple ID at the top you will see this pop up next.

Tap on sign out on the above pop up and the screen will now show this.

So now you only have the receive at address of your phone number but you can now log back into your Apple ID and all is well! 🙂

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Answer 2

Jan 12, 2012 3:00 PM in response to Aperture_Monkey

Thanks for the troubleshooting! I've been on iOS 5 (with my standard iPhone 4) for 2-3 months now, but since only a handful of my friends have iPhones with the new OS, I just recently realized I was having this problem. I would go to compose a message to someone I knew had iOS 5, but it would come up green like a text and then I'd get "Who is this?" replies -- from friends who had received an email from my phone number (@) att.net.

This seems to have fixed my issue. 🙂

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