Messages thinks I'm in the wrong country

Hi,

What about the Date and Time pane and the Time Zone tab ?

Also check the Time zone of your router.

The OS make several check to work out your Location and the Time Zone setting in Date and Time seems to be high up on the list.

Where your ISP's server is can also effect things.

7:52 pm Friday; October 6, 2017

Hi,

Yes I was caught out by the fact you can no longer change it in the App.

What I do notice is all my Contacts show full +44 (UK) country codes now when I am sure they never used to have them.

It now appears to be a sync things from your iPhone.

In Messages > Send and Receive tap the Apple ID

You are then offered several option of which one is Change Location. (if you choose this it says it will change the info in the Contacts App which of course then gets synced).

9:23 p.m. Sunday; October 18, 2015

Hi,

Open the app.

Select Preferences > Accounts.

Select the iMessages account.

Use the Details Button.

You will need to "sign in" here as well.

Change the country.

Opps good job I checked, that only works up to Yosemite.

It seems this has been moved outside of Messages.

I would check the Time Zone in Date and Time settings (System Preferences) and the Language and Region settings as well.

Possibly check the Automatic Time Server (Date and Time in Date & Time) is not set to Apple Europe.

8:59 p.m. Thursday; October 15, 2015

I'm having the similar problem:

For example, I have a contact (+1 250-XXX-XXX), which also has another entry saved without the country code (250-XXX-XXX). When I received text messages, Mac message app doesn't recognize it from my contacts, and shows as a conversation with (250-XXX-XXX).

When I try to add the number into my exist contact again, the number is shown as (+86 250-XXX-XXX). When I reply those messages directly through Mac, these messages automatically add +86 to the phone number (+86 250-XXX-XXX), which should be +1 instead (+1 250-XXX-XXX). Thus, whenever I tried to reply on mac, the texts never delivered successfully.

I've checked my iMessage country (Canada) on my phone, the language & region, date & time, and timezone (Canada) on my mac, address format (Canada) of the Contacts App on my mac as well, but the problem still exist. Don't know if there is any other approach I can take to make it work.

Hi,

That is helpful.

Up until Yosemite there was a Details Button in Messages > Preferences > Accounts > iMessages Account that you could use.

You had to enter your Login details again but it was the place to Change the Location on the Mac version.

On My El Capitan all my Contacts (as seen in the Contacts app) have the +44 for the UK now added - except exceptions that had others before hand).

With the lack of anything obvious on the Mac I had presumed that the issue was the details syncing from the iPhone.

I have just double checked the Contacts app and it does appear it is not everyone.

On Checking the "To" spot in a New Message in the Messages App entering +44 shows all the Contacts I have will that beginning, then some SMS callers that I am guessing are my phone carrier's SMS service.

However it then goes on to show +1 options as well.

I would try editing these manually

com.apple.ids.service.com.apple.madrid.plist

com.apple.ids.service.com.apple.ess.plist

In a Finder window use th GO Menu whilst holding down the ALT key.

Select the Library that appears in the list.

Navigate to Preferences and find the two files.

The Madrid one holds the Apple ID and other Aliases for iMessages but the profile section has the Country Code in it.

The Ess one seems to be a more general item about Identity Services.

Open them with TextEdit and change the name and the Country Code.

8:43 p.m. Wednesday; October 21, 2015

Hi,

I have not come across anything so far but I will try to remember this thread if I do.

9:13 pm Thursday; February 25, 2016

hi,

I have nothing new.

I have found out though that El Capitan decides on it's location by finding out where the other networks it can see are based.

This seems to be partially linked to the Time Zone and Location settings in Date and Time in System Preferences.

What I can't seem to find is any way to alter this by deleting a .plist or resetting a preference anywhere.

8:26 pm Tuesday; March 29, 2016

I have the same problem in OSX 10.12.6. My region is selected correctly in Language & Region settings (Serbia) but all phone numbers are prefixed with +385 (Croatia).

Ralph, thanks for your helpful comments. My messages were working fine until I upgraded to El Capitan then all of my contacts (which are not listed with country code) are now coming up in messages as the phone number with country code, instead of the name. I know mac has/had the capability to treat these the same as the iPhone can (recognising both the full apple id number w/ country code, as well as the shortened one for the same contact name). Would you let us know if you find another workaround? I would imagine this would be a fairly large issue for anyone who didn't input all their contacts with the country code. Thanks!

After a visit from the UK to China, I was having the same problem.

I solved it (under 10.12.2) by going to 'Language and Region' where I found that 'China' was still set as the Region.

I hope this helps.

Thank you sooooo much! I just changed from an Irish Cell to a US one, and I kept getting the Irish International Access Code added in front of US Cell numbers, even thought they were already in my contacts with +1. This completely solved a major headache. Thanks again!

Same problem here. No new suggestions?

did you ever fix this? i just FINALLY managed to, it's a little annoying - in date and time settings click Open date and region and make sure this region is America. fixed! (finally)