iPhone messages not showing contact names

For my iphone 7 with some fairly heavy corporate device management, I had to use a variation of Stanners10 "Short Name" fix to get it to work. Go to: Setting > Contacts > Short Name. Then, select a different name format preference. Mine default was "first name & last initial" so I selected "first name only." That fixed the issue. I didn't have to toggle the Short Name off, just changing the name format worked for me. I was then able to revert back to my initial name format preference.

I did 2 things which seems to solve my problem.

-I signed out & back into FaceTime & iMessage

-I disabled contacts on my iCloud account & then turned it back on

-I changed ‘contacts’ arrangement from ‘last,first ‘ to ‘first, last’ .

I have been having this issue as well. I have restarted messages. Even tried updating the contact itself and no luck its very frustrating especially if you do not remember the numbers lol. So i have the contacts saved in my phone and it will then start a new thread with just the number itself. I have talked to apple and they are stumped as well. So if someone has some simple fixes pleeeeease let me know. I am so close to making a new apple account which i do not want to do.

So, can you give me an idea why my numbers are coming up in my contacts as +91? I havent changed a thing on my phone. Apple techs are stumped to what the issue may be. So far all they have told me to do is not working. Also, it trys to change my trusted number and i have to stop it from doing so.

I experienced this problem with my iPad. When I went to look at the contents of the Contacts app, I noticed that there were no contacts so it occured to me that I might have disabled the cloud syncing for contacts i.e. the iPad was not accessing the contacts from my iPhone. To fix:

Go to <Settings>, tap on your apple ID at the very very top left of the page, tap on <iCloud>, make sure the button beside <Contacts> is on (green).

This fixed things for me 🙂

This fixed the problem for me! But I didn't have to power off the device. I just edited each of my contacts by typing the word "test" in the notes field, and then the names started showing up in Messages again.

Yes that actually fixed my issue thanks. Started after needing to log out of iCloud on my phone. Once I re logged the issue appeared.

Changing Short-name from Settings>Contacts>Short Name change to any setting get back in messages and you should see the change from numbers to contact name. After change the setting back to what it was or need.

Do all your devices have the current software. My iPhone is my main device and keep it backed up and my iPod and iPad update to the same info on iphone. The iCloud shows info from phone. It is good to keep icloud backed up

incase you need to do a sudden reset of phone and lose all your information. Have you tried deleting contact and reinputting contact then backing up. Is your information correct in imessage settings. In settings; your name; iCloud

now has a message button; have you turned it green? That was added in last update and not everyone knows it is there. Have you updated your devices to the current iOS version.

Okay, I had this exact issue and tried many of the recommendations with no luck. For me the real issue was the account where I stored the original contact information. I use a Excahnge account rather than iCloud so my solution came by first going to Settings -> Accounts & Passwords and confirming the account was connected then over to Settings -> Contacts -> Default Account and selected the Exchange account as my default. Good luck!!

I had the same issue. I am NOT syncing contacts to icloud but rather to GOOGLE contacts and I have gmail app installed also. I found that my gmail app was greyed out but once i opened it, the contacts reappeared in chats and call log. I suppose turning on and off the contacts in google account might also fix things--

Settings / Accounts & Passwords / Gmail / contacts

This worked for me. Sign out of Icloud (Settings... “Apple Id, iCloud“). At the bottom on the right hand pane “sign out”. Delete all info? Yes.(it will all come back when you sign in)

After you are signed out of iCloud, push your home button (the big round one) and your power button at the same time. Hold both until Apple icon comes on the screen. Release buttons.

Ipad will restart shortky after. Now sign back into iCloud by reversing the sign out process.

This worked for me. It also solves some other iMessage problems.

For some reason my iPad sometimes decides to sign out of iCloud. This procedure fixes those problems for a while. It appears that iMessage on an iPad uses iCloud.

I've had this issue for years? I never figured it out until now... not that I understand exactly what happened.

1. Tried all the toggling on and off of things.

2. synced icloud of contacts, imessage, and phone's icloud

3. deleted all contacts from "on my mac" to use only icloud

4. changed 1 contacts number ... I deleted the +1 from the phone number. THEN, MAGIC!!! names appeared FINALLY!

no need to remove and re add contacts, and restart everything. Here it is.

General>Language & Region> Change region to your region,

mine me was set to America for some reason. Changed it to aus and fixed it. If it is set to your region change it to something else and back again.

Try this next. Go to Settings>Messages>MMS Messaging. Turn it off and then turn it on again.

didn't work for me. anyone know other options? tried reset, and tried settings reset to default