Why is iMessage combining two contacts into one thread. I can only text back the last one that messaged me. This started with iOS 12

psmaher wrote:

Having the same problem, right after the update. Based on several threads I’ve seen, it may be planned on the part of Apple in order to force everyone to have their own Apple ID/account. Unfortunately, in our household with younger kids, as a parent, I dont want them having access to certain things and this is our way of having some control over what our kids are doing and what they wish to download/purchase, etc. If this is indeed Apple’s tactic, this pushes things too far in my opinion. Government and big business now want to control all aspects of our lives and my wife and i don’t care or want that kind of intrusion. I‘m hoping Apple comes out with a fix soon for this, or we may look to go the Android route in the near future.

Which is why Family Sharing was created. Apple has NEVER supported sharing IDs. Sharing your ID with children under 13 is a crime. It bypasses the rules for data collection of children's activity. You're only hurting your children in the long run by sharing IDs.

The "Fix" is to use Family Sharing and create appropriate IDs for your children as the law requires.

***** I too like to share our ID with our kids so we can follow their Texts, family share doesn't allow this feature. As parents trying to monitor and teach young children, its more than helpful to guide them in the right direction. Every time it merges our messages, I delete that last message with all the string and just start a new one. I unfortunately have lost many texted pictures from months ago and conversations that I often would go back to to remind me of what was said. Apple needs to comment formally and I am shocked they have not and very disappointed along with most of you.

[Edited by Host]

Just because you don't like the answer does not make it wrong and it does not make the person posting the answer "rude".

As has already pointed out, if you are sharing your ID with a child under 13, you are committing a crime.

yeah the whole LAW thing doesn't really work here. Forward us the code please. Having your own ID doesn't work either unfortunately and if it did, it would be easy for APPLE to comment and tell us that is the fix but they have not. And to say that Apple has never supported Sharing, I disagree as they gave us all the ability to decide who on our Apple ID can send and receive. In addition, I am not sure where in the manual you saw that they will NEVER support sharing of an ID and if you could forward that section with the above code, I think we would all be most appreciative.

Oh I like to follow the rules just not sure which ones you are referring to. Just bc you say there are rules doesn't make it so. Can you be helpful Phillie and Kilted and send some documentation we can sink our teeth into. That would be helpful. But making up stuff about rules and laws probably just irritates most of us. Can you send us data, please?

Google is your friend. I'm done arguing with you. Why do you bother asking for help if you're unwilling to accept the advice you're given? Probably because you have no interest in the solution. You just want to hear yourself complain.

Good luck.

I am asking for help that I can trust and do like to see things in writing that people like you feel so confident about. I am sure you didn't make up the law statement or phillie the Apple Violation but there are the rest of us that are unfamilair so if you could send to us, we can take the needed steps. What we know is that setting up all Sep ID's doesn't work so far so really need help. We have tried that. And look, I am level 1 vs. Level 10 so looks like you are the one who likes to post. I am just looking for documented help. But I do understand if you don't have it and if you don't please don't respond back.

Because -- as is noted in several posts -- after setting up separate Apple ID's for all family members and setting up family sharing, the issue persists. Also, it is illegal to set up APPLE IDs for anyone under 13 years old -- which means you either have to lie about their age or have them use the parent's APPLE ID.

Which is why Family Sharing was created. Apple has NEVER supported sharing IDs. Sharing your ID with children under 13 is a crime. It bypasses the rules for data collection of children's activity. You're only hurting your children in the long run by sharing IDs.

FYI Sharing an Apple ID is not a crime ... creating an Apple ID for children under 13 is a crime. In fact Apple doesn;t allow it. Using your logic, it's a crime to give a kid under 13 an iPhone.

joenapp wrote:

Also, it is illegal to set up APPLE IDs for anyone under 13 years old -- which means you either have to lie about their age or have them use the parent's APPLE ID.

False. IDs for children under 13 can be created using Family Sharing.

Family Sharing was designed to allow the creation and use of Apple IDs by children in compliance with the law.

For those of you asking about the law, look up Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) (15 U.S.C. §§6501-6506).

It's just a tad too long to post here, and if you're not a lawyer, you may have some difficulty in understanding some parts of it.

joenapp wrote:

FYI Sharing an Apple ID is not a crime ... creating an Apple ID for children under 13 is a crime. In fact Apple doesn;t allow it. Using your logic, it's a crime to give a kid under 13 an iPhone.

Again, false. I suggest you educate yourself.

I’m kind of sick of hearing the snarky comments on here. What about my problem? My wife and son have always had their own IDs and are on family sharing. Their contacts have merged on my phone. How do I fix that? I do have other children that share an ID but they are working fine on my phone. It’s the two accounts that are independent that are having issues. There obviously is some bug out there.

I'm not really looking to battle anyone about this, just my 2 cents.

Some will make the argument that we should have never done it this way. But many of us that we had multiple devices before 2014 when they introduced family sharing in iOS8. Before that time, there was no way to share anything except having a single ID. Furthermore, the transition had many of its own issues (plenty of articles out there, just search for them).

Flash forward to iOS12, and without any warning it was forced upon us. I personally don't have an issue with moving to separate ids, but that doesn't seem to be working very cleanly either. Also, I'm not really excited about delete my 10 years of texts, including pictures, etc. and starting all over? No where near an ideal transition.

No matter what, Apple prides itself on easy, and this is very, very far from easy.

The hosts only remove posts that violate ToU. Disagreeing with another user does not violate ToU, no matter how much they annoy you. And the hosts have removed many posts from this thread. Including one of mine. And I've reported a few that have been removed. When a thread gets this long the hosts tend to watch it, something they don't routinely do. So if there are any significant ToU violations they will be dealt with.

I have fixed the problem with combined iMessages and I still only use a single apple ID account. Before everyone points out that you are not supposed to do that, I know. I have weighed the costs of not sharing and I am comfortable with my decision, it may not be correct, but it works for me.

My "fix" has been working now for more than 15 days. I will run through exactly what I did, and in what order I did it.

The products I have are:

2011 Macbook Pro (High Sierra) FaceTime associated with email #2, iMessage WAS linked to my phone number (more on that later)
iPhone 6 (mine, iOS 12) iMessage and FaceTime associated only with phone number.

iphone SE (wife, iOS 12) iMessage and FaceTime associated only with phone number.

Iphone 5S (daughter, iOS12) iMessage and FaceTime associated only with phone number.

Old iPad (3rd generation iOS 9.3.5) iMessage and FaceTime associated only with email #1.

Previously on this thread I mentioned that I was going to roll back to iOS 11, but Apple is no longer signing that version so this is how I got everything to work.

1. I signed out of my apple ID on every iOS device and turned off find my iPhone. I deleted all of the iMessages from every contact that shares the single apple ID, on every device.

2. I signed out of my apple ID on my Mac and then turned off iMessage all together. I then deleted all messages.

3. I factory reset my iPhone and restored it from backup. When setting it back up I only allowed my phone number to be associated with my iMessage and FaceTime. (I do not use iCloud photos on any device, but I do use my photo stream. All of my devices are backed up up every night to iCloud. Additionally, AirDrop and handoff is disabled on all iOS and Mac devices)

4. I factory reset my wife iPhone and restored it from backup. When setting it back up I only allowed her phone number to be associated with her iMessage and FaceTime.

5. I factory reset my daughters iPhone and restored it from backup. When setting it back up I only allowed her phone number to be associated with her iMessage and FaceTime.

6. I re-signed into my apple ID on the iPad and I only allowed email #1 to be associated with its iMessage and FaceTime.

7. I DID NOT activate iMessages on the Mac. I have read in other forums that this can cause the combining of iMessages again. I am not happy to no longer have iMessages on my Mac but it is a sacrifice I can live with.

I have subsequently updated all iPhones to 12.0.1 and they have still not combined a single iMessage.

Prior to this fix I was also getting wrong iMessages from my brother who shares a single apple ID with his family. This problem has also been remedied with this "fix".

I understand that this may not be THE way but it is A way, and it has worked for me. I will provide an update if this workaround no longer works with further iOS updates.

Thanks