App-specific password for iMessage on different Macs

Question

Level 2

164 points

App-specific password for iMessage on different Macs

For reasons that are not clear to me, my iMac at home did require a new password for iMessage. Before the reboot that I did after the Adobe & Microsoft updates iMessage did work, after the reboot it did not work but asked for an app-specific password. I could generate this app-specific password via my iCloud account, and with that submitted iMessage did work again.

Now to the questions:

1) Why does iMessage (I use only iMessage, not FaceTime) suddenly require this new password? There were plenty of reboots that I did earlier, and also many software updates.

2) Can/should/must I use the same app-specific password for iMessage on the different Macs (home, office, Laptop) I have? And on the iPhone as well? As far as I can tell, these iMessage instances all run currently with my "main" iCloud/AppleID password submitted for the iCloud account in (System) Settings.

iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2013), OS X Yosemite (10.10.3), Fusion Drive, 16 MB RAM

Posted on Jan 18, 2016 4:19 AM

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Answer 1

Eric Root

Level 10

685,329 points

Jan 18, 2016 11:04 AM in response to bwadma

1. Do you have 2 step verification set up for your Apple ID?

Apple ID - Two Step Verifications FAQ

Two-step authentication for iMessage and FaceTime

2. Yes if the answer to question 1 is yes.

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Answer 2

bwadma Author

Level 2

164 points

Jan 18, 2016 11:06 AM in response to Eric Root

Hi Eric,

thanks for your reply!

Yes, I have Two Step Verification set up for my Apple ID. But I did this already in October 2014, almost 1.5 years ago. I did not actively log out of iMessage on my home Mac.

Maybe, there is (or was) a problem with the synonyms of Apple-IDs? I noticed today that although iMessage did work on my office Mac, it did since some time (about two months?) not display copies of iMessages that I wrote on other devices. Incoming iMessages from other people were OK. iMessage was set up on this Mac with username@me.com, while my "real" AppleID is username@mac.com. After logging iMessage out, and re-login with username@mac.com, un-synced messages (from the last weeks) came in. It seems that it is required to use the same AppleID synonym (there is also the icloud.com version) on various Macs/iPhones to allow iMessage to function properly?

While I did this on the office Mac, the question came up if iMessage on the 2nd Mac should get an independent 2nd app-specific password (this is how I interpreted what the info on the screen told me), or if I should use the one that I generated the day before for the home Mac.

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Answer 3

Eric Root

Level 10

685,329 points

Jan 18, 2016 11:38 AM in response to bwadma

You are welcome. My experience is the Apple IDs must be the same, which your test seems to indicate also. I think the same password should work for both Macs, but I'm not in a position to test that. When I was running 2 OSs on my computer, the same password worked for both.

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Answer 4

bwadma Author

Level 2

164 points

Jan 18, 2016 11:39 AM in response to Eric Root

Thanks!

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Answer 5

Eric Root

Level 10

685,329 points

Jan 18, 2016 11:45 AM in response to bwadma

You are welcome.

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