Messages app on High Sierra adds wrong country code for SMS messages

Question

Level 1

8 points

Messages app on High Sierra adds wrong country code for SMS messages

I finished setting up the continuity in High Sierra on my MacBook Pro, and I can send text messages to recipients who're not using iMessage but regular mobile number, when they replied the messages, Messages app started a separate conversation, the contact name was prefixed with a "Maybe:".

I have all my contact phone number saved with the country code (like +86 13829182721 as I'm in China), however the carrier (China Mobile) didn't format the sender phone number with the country code (in SMS the phone number looks like 13829182721 without +86), and Messages app thinks the phone number is in the US and automatically format it as +1 (382) 918-2721.

In the old version of Messages in Mountain Lion there was an option called Location to set the default country code but in High Sierra the option is not there, I wonder how I can set the default country code for Messages app to use.

P.S. My Apple ID has the country setting of China and I set the Region in High Sierra to China, and in FaceTime app there is a location setting in Preferences and it was set to China by me.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, macOS High Sierra (10.13)

Posted on Oct 21, 2017 10:52 AM

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Answer 1

Oct 22, 2017 1:22 PM in response to James.Liang

HI,

Feedback - Messages - Apple

The Messages Version number drop down is always out of sync with the rest of the world.

There is a Thank You screen after you submit but you will have no other contact from Apple about the matter.

Re-reading your post I can see that potentially you have the opposite issue to the rest of us.

For us it is that we have not added the Country Code to our Contacts and then the iPhone does a better job of adding for iMessages (And Not, when it is SMS via carrier)

You have added the Country Code for iMessages to Contacts but the issue of not being able to read any Location info on the Mac version means the Code is not dropped for SMS.

Either way the lack of location info being available to the Messages app on the Mac is at the bottom of the issue.

9:22 pm Sunday; October 22, 2017

 iMac 2.5Ghz i5 2011 (Sierra)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 iPhone 6 iOS 11.x and an iPad (2)

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Answer 2

Oct 21, 2017 12:42 PM in response to James.Liang

Hi,

There is not a solution for this.

Messages 7 (the first version) had it's own panel that you could access to store the country.

I later versions it was the OS that found out the location and stored this in a way that Messages could access. The result was stored in the "madrid" IDS .plist

This was not the case in Sierra and has not been improved in High Sierra.

In iMessages it has required that all Contacts have the full telephone number that includes the Country Code.

I am a little surprised that a local Carrier is not doing the same for SMS but it would form a layer of barrier to the outside world if it was not happening.

8:42 pm Saturday; October 21, 2017

 iMac 2.5Ghz i5 2011 (Sierra)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 iPhone 6 iOS 11.x and an iPad (2)

Reply

Answer 3

Oct 25, 2017 12:52 PM in response to James.Liang

for the Points.

8:52 pm Wednesday; October 25, 2017

 iMac 2.5Ghz i5 2011 (Sierra)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 iPhone 6 iOS 11.x and an iPad (2)

Reply

Answer 4

James.Liang Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 21, 2017 8:07 PM in response to Ralph-Johns-UK

Thanks Ralph, your answer helped explaining the issue.

On my iPhone it worked however, even if the carrier doesn’t included the country code in the SMS, iPhone messages app recognizes the phone number and has no problem associating the numbers with correct contacts so the SMSs remain in the same conversation. It’s the Messages app on macOS which does things differently here.

Do you know any channel that I can use to submit the feedback to Apple, there is a chance that they would add the feature to fix this.

Reply

Answer 5

James.Liang Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 25, 2017 10:03 AM in response to Ralph-Johns-UK

Hopefully Apple will fix this soon, it's not the road block for me though, it's just not exactly what I expected. Thanks for your replies anyway and they helped better explaining the issue.

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