iMessage not showing contact names

I had the same issue. Just go to system peference and sync the mac with your iCloud account. Make sure the contacts you have on iPhone is already synced with your iClouds. That'll work

In my case iMessage on my Mac was not displaying the name of my google contacts. The solution in that case was to go to Contacts Application and add Google as an account there, then I was able to see the name of my Google Contacts in my Mac iMessage.

In my Mac I went to System Preferences-->Internet Account. The I selected on Gmail. Then I check Contacts and iMessage checkboxes.

Fixed this by going to System Preferences > Language and Region > Choose the correct Region.

Hi,

Re 2).

This is a bit of a "known Issue" with no current fix.

The issue is related to the fact a iOS device seems to get the "first " push of the iMessage and that the Mac only gets "Sync" push which seems to be slower (and for some bizarre reason not always in order)

Re 1) I have seen this reported but maybe not as clearly as your post.

No-one seemed to make it clear the Contacts were in the Address Book (Contacts app) and that it seemed to be ignoring the Names for just the Numbers.

Obviously you can use the View Menu > Messages > Show Pictures and Name (or Show Names)

As you say this should link the ID or iPhone Number being used in the iMessages to the "Real Name" in the Address Card for that person.

The options are:-

A) You are receiving an iMessage from an iPhone Number but the link to the Address Card is not working.

If you make sure you are sending to an Apple ID what do you see ? (Apple ID or Real Name or in fact the iPhone number again)

This may be because you have lost the ability to "read" the saved data for the Contacts app.

B) Check the Contacts app and see if it is Syncing properly with any iOS device (i.e that all items have the Name as well as an iPhone number in the Address Card.)

10:32 pm Thursday; November 7, 2013

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mavericks 10.9)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad

Did you go to the Contacts app on your computer and add your icloud to the accounts that are linked with it? (Go to Contacts and click on the Contacts button in the menu bar and go to add account)

Hi twanbiz,

If you are also using iCloud to Sync this Contacts app contents with an iPhone AND also have the On My Mac account active you can get a duplicate display of Contacts in places like a Buddy list as well as the Contacts app itself.

There are also other ways of syncing a Contacts list with Outlook, Yahoo or Google which can also be part of a duplicate issue.

7:05 pm Sunday; November 17, 2013

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mavericks 10.9)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad

fix permissions

finder- applications - utilities - disk utilty -> click on mac hd on left - and click repair permissions

This solved my issue. Thanks!

I have found the stranges solution for this

not sure this solves everyones probem but this was the error that made my iMessage to dosplay numbers instead of names:

My iCloud contacts apparently had Swedish formating for numbers, but my OSX was set to US region

as soon as I changed regions and all setting to the right country it was back up and running as usual.

it was almost a random find, hope this solves many of yours problems with similair issue

Dont forget to check "Advanced settings" too, to make sure that everything is correct.

You could also do this:

Go to View -> Buddy Names -> Show Full Names

Hope this helped! 🙂

Paul,

This is great! Thanks for posting - it solved my problem also. In my case my region was France and my language French, but since I'm in the US right now I kept my language set to French but set my region to United States (English) and now my contact names (for US phone numbers) are showing up again in Messages app! Something must be going where the region needs to match the country of the phone number maybe?

Paul - great work! This fixed my no name showing issue! Thank you! 🙂

Thanks paul, finally I can see the names instead of numbers.. it is a weird bug though 🙂

Thanks twanbiz, had similar problem and for any reason my Exchange account was not linked anymore. Solved.

Fixing permissions did the trick for me. Thanks for the great advice!