Q: Can't deactivate iMessage after switching phones?

Hi all,

Here's some feedback. I managed to get everything to normal by doing two things (whether both are necessary or just the latter, I'm not sure):

- remove iPhone (and, in my case iPad) from Apple Devices online

- remove iPhone from iTunes locally

FYI, I did NOT have to put any sim into any phone (although apparently it might be a solution). This is good news for those of us whose phone got stolen

Hope this helps!

Another alternative to deactiving is signing into iCloud, and removing your former iPhone. I was having issues with the other method, through Apple support, but just successfully fixing the texting issue by removing through iCloud.

Simply:

Sign into iCloud

Click My Devices

Click the 'x' next to your former iPhone

Click okay.

Good luck y'all.

After I tried almost all of the tips listed above mine still didn't work.  I finally did what I found on the Verizon site which was...

Turn off the old phone (i still have mine)

Take out the sim card from the new phone for a minute and then put it back in.

Mine worked after I did that.

Keep in mind I had already removed the device from the support page, turned off imessage on the device, created a new account to associate with my wife's iphone, reset the network settings and virtually anything else I could find online to try to fix this issue.

So far I have just tested it (Lumia 920) with my wife's iphone and it is finally receiving texts.

This was SUCH a headache to resolve. I feel like it's my duty to post what finally worked for me. My issue was I left my 4s phone on the roof of my car and it got run over (classic blunder). I was still able to plug it in to charge, but the screen was completely crushed and unworkable. My upgrade with Verizon is just a few weeks away so I opted to use my husband's old LG phone in the meantime. After taking it in to the Verizon store and having them activate it, I still couldn't receive texts from anyone who used to imessage me.

First, I deactivated the device from my account on itunes and deleted my phone number from the account as well, as others mentioned. Still couldn't receive texts from imessage users (I could hear the text being sent to my old, crushed iphone). I then tried signing in on my husband's phone under imessage settings, deleting my email and phone number from the "receive at" option, and turning off imessages. Still no dice. What I finally had to do was plug my crushed phone in to my pc, connect it to itunes, and choose "Restore iphone". Before I restored it, my phone number was still showing up under the summary tab. After the restore, the phone number space showed "n/a". Apparently this was the last link, because I'm now receiving texts from all again.

Hope this helps anyone else who's frustrated!

I was breaking my head all time......awesome solution..........guys.....thank you for all your support......much appreciated.

This is a really frustrating problem, and only goes to affirm my choice to leave Apple.  Thanks for all the suggestions here.  For me a combination of deleting my device from the support site https://supportprofile.apple.com/MySupportProfile.do, removing my phone number from the support site, then while on wifi on the old phone deleting my iCloud account and turning off iMessage in the messaging settings, seems to have worked.  I don't think simply removing the phone from support was enough since iMessage was still turned on in the phone.

Hi all,

Just had the same problem but couldn't find my phone in Apple account so the issue was not to remove the device from the Cloud.

I managed to fixed this after reading this tread and the thing that worked for me was:

1. Turn of iMessager on all my Apple devices, they where iPad, MacBook Pro and iPhone 5. Had taken the SIM card out of my iPhone at this stage and had Wifi only when I turn iMessage off.

2. Waited for about 10minutes.

3. Restart my iPhone.

4. Send myself a Text message from the phone I was not getting the SMS from and it worked.

Hope this help someone. Yes, I agree that Apple really need to start listen to their customers....

I'm having all of the problems mentioned in this thread.  The only solution that works for me is to turn off iMessgae and FaceTime on my old iPhone.  This isn't an ideal solution because I still want to use iMessage and Facetime via my e-mail address.  I'll monitor this support thread and hopefully someone finds a better solution to this problem.

I deactivated my iPhone from my Apple account, and poof.....Now I can revceive text message on my Galaxy S4, from my daughter's iPhone and anyone else who has an iPhone......Thank you so much!

Mark

No, it isn't that simple.

Out of curiousity, why did you bother replying to a post from over a year and a half ago?

No matter. This post is completely pointless on its own.

Agreed.  I'm always curious about the motivations of such 'necrobumping', however.  Ah, well.  Moving on.

This worked for me for a few weeks.  Now I'm back to having the problem intermittently again...

It's like he's having a conversation with thin air...