"Text Message Forwarding" option not appearing in Messages settings

Hello anunseenruler,

Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.

To use SMS Continuity between your devices please follow the directions outlined below.

To use Continuity for SMS and MMS with your iPhone and your Mac, iPad or iPod touch

• Your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch need to use iOS 8.1, and your Mac needs to use OS X Yosemite.
• Sign in to iMessage on your iPhone, your other iOS devices, and your Mac using the same Apple ID.
• On your iPhone:
  1. Go to Settings > Messages > Send & Receive > You Can Be Reached By, and add a check to both your phone number and email address.
  2. Go to Messages > Text Message Forwarding, and enable the device(s) you would like to forward messages to.
• Your Mac, iPad, or iPod touch will display a code. Enter this code on your iPhone to verify the SMS feature.

Connect your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Mac using Continuity - Apple Support

Take care,

Alex H.

Hi anunseenruler,

Thank you for using the Apple Support Community. Due to the nature of your issue or question you may find more information by using another one of Apple's support resources - https://getsupport.apple.com/GetproductgroupList.action

Take care,

Alex H.

Clearly their community "specialists" are useless as evidenced by this thread. Tech support already expired on my iPhone, so I wasn't able to contact them. But I did a bunch of research, and found one thing that's working so far. Try getting rid of any non icloud.com email addresses on your iCloud account. By enabling icloud mail you can sign up for an icloud email address here: iCloud: Set up an @icloud.com email address

Then use that email address to sign into both your mac and iphone- I just turned off iMessage for all the other emails. Restart both devices, make sure you're on wifi and see if it ends up showing up. This worked for me, but we'll see if it lasts. What I previously experienced is that it would work for a while, and then the SMS messages will no longer come through.

You're right. They are clueless and don't get the message. The situation, as I see it, is that iOS 8.4 has a glitch in it. I ran into the exact same problem. I turned off iMessage, then turned it back on. The Text Message Forwarding section within the iMessage section of Settings was missing. Got that Apple support?? MISSING. As in, not there. Not an option. So, when you guys send me to a site asking to check on Text Message Forwarding, it's not an option. Why? BECAUSE IT'S MISSING!! Apple sent out an upgrade for iOS to include that stupid "Music" BS and screwed up a bunch of other sections within the OS itself. I had this fixed once and it took me 1.5 hours with a "specialist" to accomplish this. They should have the "fix" to their GLITCH (i.e., not my problem) on file. When I get it, I'll pass it on.

Update: I read in another thread that someone was experiencing the same problem. Wherein, if you sign out of iMessage, then sign back in, the "Text Message Forwarding" section on your iPhone Settings within the iMessage section literally disappears. It is supposed to be listed between "iMessage" and "Send Read Receipts" within the iMessage section of Settings on your iPhone. Whoever suggested doing a soft reset hit the nail on the head. Simple reboot the iPhone and it will magically reappear.

To whoever that was, thank you!!

I had this same issue (message fwding option not showing), the soft reset wasn't working. I tried turning off iMessage and turning it back on, didnt work. I have 8.4 refused to upgrade to 9. I logged out of iCloud on my phone and logged back in and the Message fwding option reappeared.

Thank you so much for your help.🙂 You've help me fixed this issue which has caused numerous issues in recent days.

This is still good advice on IOS 11

I just had the same problem; No "Text Message Forwarding" option in Settings

A soft reboot, and voilà!