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

Wow, is this discussion getting hacked by the hosts. I had a response ready that I spent about 10 minutes typing and I lost it when I tried to post. I got the red banner of doom and then I briefly got the unauthorized message and I thought the whole thing was pulled.

Anyway, you have to be level 2 to report a post the way that you are suggesting.

Levels and Perks

FIRST, if you upgrade to 12.1.1 it may fix the problem.

SECOND, you should not be sharing an Apple ID. It will cause a whole range of problems, this being only one of them. And you can continue to share photos and other content (e.g. calendars) if you have separate Apple IDs and add Family Sharing. See item 4 in this Apple Knowledge Base article: https://appleid.apple.com/faq/#!&page=faq

And this link for Family Sharing --> Family Sharing - Apple Support

a lot of people are very unhappy that they cannot use their phones the way they used to and that’s not right.

I am SO UNHAPPY that I can't use my 1980 IBM PC to run Windows 10! Time marches on. Your choice is to accept change and adapt to it or never get a new product.

Apple isn't going to change anything, so base your future plans on that assumption. Ranting to other users in this user-to-user forum accomplishes nothing except to make you look foolish.

I’m beginning to wonder if Apple reads these.

If you had bothered to read any of this thread you would know that Apple does not read these. This is a user-to-user forum. Apple does not participate. To make your views known to Apple-->https://apple.com/feedback. When you use the link it pays to be polite and provide a reasonable argument. Rants probably just go into the bit bucket.

I’ll be happy to move to somewhere else with less headaches

By all means! You should buy whatever product best meets your needs. No one here cares how you spend your money. However, finding something with less headaches will be a challenge. You can find other headaches in other platforms, but not less headaches.

The entire problem is sharing an Apple ID. Apple always recommended against sharing, but doing so did not have serious consequences in the past. But as Apple has added features that are Apple ID-centric additional consequences to sharing have occurred. The one that has caused this issue is the fact that messages are now mirrored on all devices that share an Apple ID as part of the Continuity features. This is a great convenience if you share an Apple ID among devices that you use, but causes nothing but trouble if you share among devices used by multiple people. There are other consequences to sharing, such as overlapping contacts, browsing histories, calendar appointments, photos, reminders, documents, etc. Apple anticipated this and created Family Sharing, which provides most of the benefits of sharing Apple IDs with none of the consequences. Here's Apple's FAQ-->https://appleid.apple.com/faq/#!&page=faq note in particular the 4th item.

Actually they have not only supported it but accommodated it up until IOS 12.

Avoid sharing an Apple ID

If you share the same Apple ID with a family member for iTunes & App Store purchases, certain services will treat you as the same person. You may see these and other issues:

• Apple Music family subscription: Instead of receiving your own membership with your own library, you’ll share a library and recommendations with the other family member.
• iTunes, Apple Books, and App Store purchases: If Family Sharing is ever stopped, the owner of the shared Apple ID will keep all purchases. You might lose access to everything in the account, including purchases you initiated.
• Apple Podcasts, Apple Books, and iTunes U: Podcast episodes, bookmarks, and iTunes U courses might sync according to the other family member’s preferences or be accidentally deleted.

To see which Apple ID your family member is using to share, tap Settings > [your name] > Family Sharing, then tap their name. If you're using iOS 10.2 or earlier, tap Settings > iCloud > Family. Make sure that no one else is using your Apple ID to share content.

They say AVOID sharing an Apple ID. They don't say it's not allowed.

You still don't understand why people are upset.

I logged out of Messaging and Facetime with a previously shared Apple ID on all my devices. All users are using family sharing. I then deleted the combined threads. I then tested messaging, and all the threads were separate. This worked for about 12 hours. I then verified that I could still text people in separate threads. I then made a purchase in iTunes.

• Immediately after making an iTunes purchase the threads combined again.
• The Apple ID I used in iTunes was previously shared with others in the family, however those users are no longer using that Apple ID at all, even for purchasing in iTunes.
• So it seems that by just using a previously shared Apple ID in iTunes (or anywhere else?) combined the threads. Can someone verify this?
• I am wondering if the devices must be removed from the account and re-added under the non-shared Apple ID in iCloud. Worse, I wonder if the previously shared ID must be deleted and a new one created. This would be bad, as would your previous purchases not be lost as well?

Do we have a list of things that login with Apple ID from our devices besides iTunes, Messaging, and Facetime?

This would explain why some users don't experience this who use shared accounts, as they may not purchase things from iTunes, or they may not use services that use the shared ID. This also explains why the issue seems so sporadic.

I wish that Apple would exempt family sharing id's from this consolidation.

Thanks IdrisSeabright. Called in, spoke to a seemingly knowledgeable senior tech who communicated the following:

• Apple engineers are aware of this issue, and are working on a release / fix - did not mention timing
• Indicated expectation that this should solve the issue
• Suggested moving off shared AppleID, thought that should fix it (though I told her that's not what people in this thread think...and my wife whose on her own was / is having similar issues), but again, she said once they come out with a fix, it should resolve for those whose phones are set up correctly even on a shared AppleID

I really don't want to get mired in an AppleID debate, but I share below for those interested. She is not a senior product manager at Apple, but she seemed knowledgeable, so take this for what it's worth as it relates to shared AppleID:

• Indicated Apple does not recommend using same ID across multiple people / phones
• That said, they know people do it, its their ID, they can do what they want with it, and Apple does indeed try to support whatever people do. Some things are not solvable / supportable (shared content issues, etc.), but they will always try to help support / solve an issue. Also acknowledged with young kids, sharing an AppleID is what a lot of people do to control / find, etc.
• Again, indicated that once the fix comes out, if the phones are set up correctly (send / receive and initiate messaging settings) this issue should go away

She indicated that there are some calls about this, but it doesn't strike her as a huge issue - so if you haven't yet, perhaps call in, or click the button on top right as suggested and have them call you... Hopefully in a few days this will all be fixed regardless.

quest27 wrote:

Is apple trying to force everyone to get individual Apple IDs?

Force is a strong word. Apple started encouraging people to get personal Apple IDs 5 years ago, so they could deploy features that would compromise the privacy of users who shared Apple IDs. That list is now quite long; if you share an Apple ID here is everything that is shared equally:

• Text messages
• Recent Call list
• Email
• Contacts
• Notes
• Photos
• contacts
• Calendar entries
• Reminders
• Safari bookmarks and saved passwords
• News settings
• Stocks settings
• Health data
• App passwords
• Files saved in iCloud
• Pages documents
• Numbers documents
• Books downloaded
• Keynote documents
• Map data
• Voice memos
• App data

You can chose to not save some of these to iCloud, but if you do you need to set up a manual syncing process to move them to your computer or other devices used by the same person.

If you don't care that your Significant Other and your children (and anyone else you share with) can see your whole life you can still share Apple IDs; Apple won't actually prevent you. But new features are designed and deployed with the assumption that Apple IDs are not shared, except between devices used by the same person.

Thomas, one of the geniuses in Sydney, and his team fixed my problem, which was identical to yours.

1. Make sure iTunes up to date
2. sign out of iCloud
3. Back the phone up to iTunes, NOT iCloud
4. sign out of FaceTime and iMessage
5. Restart phone
6. restore from iTunes backup.

It takes awhile, but it was worth it to save all of my husband’s messages! Both message threads separated and I was able to keep both. Most other answers involved deleting the entire message stream.

Thomas, one of the geniuses in Sydney, and his team fixed my problem, which was identical to yours.

1. Make sure iTunes up to date
2. sign out of iCloud
3. Back the phone up to iTunes, NOT iCloud
4. sign out of FaceTime and iMessage
5. Restart phone
6. restore from iTunes backup.

It takes awhile, but it was worth it to save all of my husband’s messages! Both message threads separated and I was able to keep both. Most other answers involved deleting the entire message stream.

Less

I am having this same issue as well since upgrading to IOS 12. I am using a 6S+. I did report last night to CS and they couldnt fix and are supposed to have a tech call me today. It has not happened to others in my family yet, but I am waiting for it to.

This was happening with messages from my other family members. We are on the same Apple ID and since this started happening i created a new apple ID and changed my phone to start using the new ID. This DID NOT solve my issue.

When others have this happen are they family members texts that are merged together or others. Are those individuals using the same apple ID?

This is helpful. Please clarify. Are you suggesting that you tried creating separate apple id’s for each family member but ios12 somehow still recognized an association and combined the messages?

Or... are you merely saying that you deleted each affected conversation, created new messages which worked a few times but then found IOs12 combined them again?

Grrrrrrr...

I’m at a loss. I spent hours yesterday and today with apple techs trying to troubleshoot. Despite giving them the benefit of the doubt and patiently tolerating their iMessage 101 lessons, they confidently told me the solution was multiple apple id’s. It appears this is not so. You have saved me a trendies amount of time and, I believe, heartache. For that I say thanks!

After the battery fiasco, this problem has me wanting to dump IOS devices altogether.

So question:

What is the most appropriate and productive channel for raising this issue with apple?

How can we standardize the reporting of our issue so that apple can more easily / quickly aggregate the incident reports? (Ie see them as the same problem, determine customers affected and hopefully raise severity level)

No, this doesn't care if they have the apple id checked... It has somehow linked all their phone numbers to one Apple ID and I think that Apple ID remembers the phone numbers and thus merges all the messages. However, to go and create all new Apple ID's isn't a solution when people like my family have lots of important information stored in the original Apple ID. Man, just imagine old people who have important doctor information and such that they can't lose. This isn't very user friendly at all and I hope they get a fix to this in the next few days.