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

I started getting this problem all of a sudden 3 days ago with my husband and my son. I went into the contacts and deleted the home number, which was shared, by my husband and son. Deleted the home number from my son's contact and viola, it fixed the problem. I hope this helps other users.

My Iphone x has same problem. Most people on here are experiencing mix ups with family members with same apple id. My problem isn't mix ups with family members, but with some of my business contacts. I type a message to lets say Lauren, one I push send it tells me I have sent the message to Royal Mail, there entry in my contacts isn't even a mobile number. Very confused... Is there a fix yet?????

I would like to make a suggestion to you. Your problem seems to be totally unrelated to what is going on in this discussion. My suggestion would be to start your own thread and provide as many details about the problem as you can.

This is and still happening with my 6s and on 12.1.4. I am not connected to the Apple ID at all in this case as we are in different homes so have a separate Apple ID. I don’t believe this is a Apple ID problem like Lawrence has stated above and it’s something entirely different. I am also losing my 2 threads that somehow ends up being put into one for those contacts. This is very frustrating and was not happening till iOS 12. I have tried everything including calling Apple without any resolution.

This will happen if the person you are texting with shares an Apple ID also. And location doesn't matter with Apple ID. If the Messages app is signed into the same Apple ID on 2 devices this can be the result.

I just stumbled into this nightmare resulting from the new “united thread functionality” which came with IOS 12. I don’t share an apple id with anyone, but discovered that my daughter shares hers with her minor daughter...I used to text frequently with my daughter but hadn’t texted with my granddaughter since before IOS 12. The first time I did a few days ago, found that their texts had now been merged into one thread, which I have tried every avenue to undo..including deleting threads, going into various options like deleting contacts, toggle on and off imessage, going to an online chat with apple support who was aware of problem but unable to help me unless I got them to unshare. I then discovered that the same thing can happen if you try to text anyone who has a shared id (i.e. lots of couples) and there is no way of knowing in advance that they have a shared ID and this will happen. I have sent a suggestion to Apple that they give us the option to turn this off since we have no way to control it if the recipients, unknown to us, have a shared account .

bluebird728 wrote:

I have sent a suggestion to Apple that they give us the option to turn this off since we have no way to control it if the recipients, unknown to us, have a shared account .

Then you've done all that you can do, aside from asking that your daughter not share her Apple ID (minors can have their own ID, with some caveats).

Although I might be able to get my daughter to do it, how do I know in advance who else might have old shared ids. For example, I want to help plan a surprise birthday party for a friend whose has had an iphone for a number of years. If I text her husband (something I have never done), will it go to her? Do I ask him first (call or email since I can’t safely text without knowing). The problem seems to crop up most often among family members who we might be able to influence, but what about relative strangers...I suspect it happens less because we are less likely to be texting to more than one of them, but there are plenty of examples of this 45 page thread of texts going outside our own family to couples that get merged and misdirected.

One last thought I had was to try to roll back to a backup copy of my phone prior to the roll out of ios12 last October. Has anyone tried that. It is a pretty drastic step, but I understand that would restore my phone to ios11, but cost me last six months of data, photos etc unless backed up elsewhere.

I'm going to throw in my 2 cents. It's not necessarily the Apple suggested method or agreed upon by everyone. However, I've been using multiple Apple devices this way for years and it would alleviate a lot of the problems you're bringing up. Unfortunately, from your scenario, this only helps on the recipient's end. This would be what your daughter could do. You as a sender still never know which or how many devices your message is going to so the onus is on the recipient. This could mean it's still possible have an awkward situation, but at least it may help.

For my wife and kids I manage 4 iPads, 3 iPhones, 2 MacBooks, and 1 iMac. All use one single Apple ID for the app store and iTunes/Apple Music. There really aren't any complications there. Then, they all share one single Apple ID, with an upgraded iCloud storage size, for iCloud. The tricky part is that they also share one single Apple ID for iMessage and FaceTime...kind of. For years now, Apple has supported aliases and that's how I manage to have a shared Apple ID where messages go to the correct place. I have no way of knowing how long they will in the future.

With that second Apple ID for iMessage and Facetime, it is the same Apple ID login information on each device. However, I then have different aliases for each device. If you didn't know about this feature or have never used it, sign in to appleid.apple.com then where it says "Reachable At" click edit. From there you can add aliases. I have around 9 and I've never seen a limit. In my uses the aliases are all separate gmail addresses. You could possibly use phone numbers, but I'm not certain and have never tried or seen if that's supported. So in my scenario (using fake example info) I login with "mainappleidaticlouddotcom" and then under that have "myphonealiasatgmaildotcom", "myipadaliasatgmaildotcom", "wifephonealiasatgmaildotcom", "daughtersipadaliasatgmaildotcom", and so on. My only caveat there is that you can't use an email that's ever been associated with an Apple ID on its own; meaning, you can't merge an existing Apple ID into the aliases, it has to be an email that's never been associated with one before.

That's on the Apple ID setup side. Then on the device side I'll just take my phone and my daughter's iPad. In iMessage, we both login with "mainappleidaticlouddotcom" then in the iMessage settings, where it says send and receive, all of the aliases are listed. I uncheck any that don't apply to that device and check the specific one. On my phone it has my phone number and "myphonealiasatgmaildotcom" with check marks by them. On my daughter's iPad it has just "daughtersipadaliasatgmaildotcom" checked. If you get the setup I'm describing, the other issue is that there has to be complete trust involved. I would never do this with anyone except my wife and kids. My daughter could very easily go into the settings, hit the check mark by another alias, and receive all of the messages intended for that device. I don't know if in later years I may worry about that more or ditch my setup all together, but as I have younger children and nothing to hide from my wife, everyone has mutual understanding of the way it works and doesn't do that. Settings go through the same routine for FaceTime.

Is this for everybody? No, definitely not. Will people tell me that I'm setting myself up for problems. Sure, and that's fine. I've done this for about 6ish years successfully. The only time I had an issue was when I first posted a message on this board and followed the thread. In one update a few months back, things started getting crossed and duplicated. I thought my system was done for, but simply signing out and back into all of the Apple ID's and rechecking the correct device's aliases had it all back to normal.

I'm not saying this makes it so that no-one can ever have the problem of messages going to the wrong recipient, but if you think the process through it is a viable solution for parents, kids, and spouses sharing an Apple ID without overlap as long as everybody knows and understands how it works.

So basically, you are saying that you consciously have chosen to ignore the way Apple designed iCloud to work and how Apple advised on how to use it. Years ago your approach worked because Apple IDs did nothing more than manage purchases and downloads, so you got away with ignoring Apple's design and advice. But as Apple added features to iCloud the concept of "one person, one iCloud ID", when violated, caused more and more problems. Apple realized that this could happen, so they created Family Sharing, which provides all of the benefits of shared Apple IDs with none of the downsides. But it's just going to get worse. Apple is not going to provide support for users who don't use their products and software the way it is designed to be used. You can choose to ignore Apple's design intent, but you do it at your own peril.

Alexis62103 wrote:

Is this for everybody? No, definitely not. Will people tell me that I'm setting myself up for problems. Sure, and that's fine. I've done this for about 6ish years successfully. The only time I had an issue was when I first posted a message on this board and followed the thread. In one update a few months back, things started getting crossed and duplicated. I thought my system was done for, but simply signing out and back into all of the Apple ID's and rechecking the correct device's aliases had it all back to normal.

Sounds as if you're making a lot more work for yourself than just setting up Family Sharing.

Alexis62103...thank you very much for the detailed way you have devised a work-around; the apple tech support person I was working with tried a variety of methods like this, but she was doing it on my end...not the recipients end which is part of the massive problem that IOS12 has created. I think your method may be helpful for other families with children. In my case, I am going to try to get my daughter to set up a separate id for my granddaughter...I will have to convince her that they will be able to remember the new id and password (I did see on family sharing that the parent account address is the backup if the child can't access...anyone who has to deal with multiple ids and passwords knows that having to also remember new ones for this arrangement can feel the pain.) She is traveling right now and I was supposed to be able to text my granddaughter about school pickups etc so this "bug" really bothers me.

I also appreciate your trying to give another "family" user some helpful advice...somehow, I think some of the comments about just "live with it" come from people that don't have minor children or less competent people on the other end. The most frustrating part for me is that there is nothing that I can do from my end.

I see your point and it’s valid. However tedious my explanation was for clarity, it’s actually no work at all. The system that I work with came along gradually over years as my devices grew and it’s a few minutes of setup for each added device that would be the same basic time as family sharing. For 6+ years with an issue 1 time after an update that I worked through I’m happy with it and feel it’s viable for others depending on their personal situation. Definitely not for everyone.

Alexis62103 wrote:

I see your point and it’s valid. However tedious my explanation was for clarity, it’s actually no work at all. The system that I work with came along gradually over years as my devices grew and it’s a few minutes of setup for each added device that would be the same basic time as family sharing. For 6+ years with an issue 1 time after an update that I worked through I’m happy with it and feel it’s viable for others depending on their personal situation. Definitely not for everyone.

I suspect, that as time goes, on, you're going to have to fiddle with it more and more.

I particularly appreciate someone who "solves tech problems" for a living trying to figure out a way out of this. I spent a lot of time on various boards in the past couple of days, trying to figure out if I had missed some solution. Yours is the only workaround I have seen, other than "get separate ids"....too much time wasted on deleting threads, toggling out of imessage, changing contact lists, update to 12.1 (yeah, that fix didn't do it since I am on 12.12) etc. The only glimmer of hope I had was the support tech at apple telling me I'm not the only one with this problem --after trying endless options she concluded that my daughter and granddaughter must be, unbeknown to me, sharing...and if so, then if I can get them to unshare, I will still have to do all the things we just did (delete tainted threads, clean up any contact overlap data, etc, watch for it to come back even with the new ID if I have left any bit of the shared ID traceable back to my granddaughter's phone...the monster in the apple software will try to bring them back together again.)