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

OysterDePoyster wrote:

A, B and C all shared an Apple ID. B now has their own.

Just curious, when B established a new ID, did A and C delete B from their contacts, and re-create B using the new ID's email address as well as B's phone number? The email (ID) in B's contact entry may help differentiate B from past history on the server (just speculation).

Also, think about what happens when an iPhone user decides to change to an Android phone ... they need to deregister their phone number with Apple so that the server knows not to route iMessages to that phone number, and instead allow them to go out as SMS messages (from a sender's iPhone). I have to wonder if a similar thing needs to be done to break free of a shared Apple ID, i.e. perhaps B needed to turn off iMessage, unregister the phone number, wait several hours, then re-enable iMessage (again, speculation). Might be worth a try.

Deregister iMessage on your iPhone or online - Apple Support

I have the same issue. After 5 hours of dealing with apple support and getting no help whatsoever (nobody even told me this was a known issue they kept saying i dont know thats weird...) verizon offered a solution. If you delete the contacts of the people that is getting messed up and delete all their messages it undoes the merging. I believe its only temporary but much better than any help i recieved from apple!

I have seen similar in WatchOS 5

Does everyone having this issue with multiple contacts have a shared phone number across all those contacts; like a home phone number that’s the same on them all?

If so; could you try remove that shared contact information?

Do you all have iMessage in iCloud too?

I saw this in MacOS High Sierra where I can switch between the different contact numbers in a single thread of a single contact.

I saw on watch that when I walkie talkie to wife; it also invited “home” as they shared a phone number

Please check and try. This might work around the issue until Apple resolves it; if it is indeed causing the issue.

Something that’s working so far and a suggestion: I called Apple yesterday about this. They know about it, advice was “change your messaging to start new messages from your AppleID email address”. I did that on my phone, then had all family members delete prior strings and it appears to be working (for now). 4 of 5 of us are on same AppleID, but problem is/was across all 5 devices.

Suggestion - if you have time, call Apple at 1-800-MY-APPLE (

800-692-7753) and ask about this, tell them. The higher volume of calls they get about this, you’d hope the more they will try to deal with it, or make an announcement, or something.

For those of you who keep saying stop using the same AppleID, it’s not just that issue in our own family where we have several - not in this thread - and the point is Apple should be helping people, making statements that they are aware, on it, or it, etc. Not the best PR response thus far.

I ran the 12 beta for a while and never had this issue until updating to the official release. My wife and daughters have all used their own unique Apple IDs on their devices and I have always been the only one using mine. We have never shared IDs. This issue is only happening on my phone with my wife and one of my daughters. Their phone numbers are only different by 1 number in the last digit of their phone number. All the accounts are part of family sharing. I have been able to call each person but not text then individually after send a group text to them.

I went in and deleted their contact info from my phone, erased their chat messages, disabled contact iCloud uploading on all phones, disabled find contacts in other apps under settings, contacts, Siri & Search. I haven’t had the issue since but I cross my fingers hoping it doesn’t come back.

Any of you sharing an apple ID should certainly look into and deselect the common apple ID in:

Settings>Messages>Send & Receive>

Have each device only allow the Send & Receive iMessages from their phone number.

If further issues are still arising, consider disallowing iMessages all together in:

Settings>Messages: Deselect iMessage (I believe this will force all text messages to be handled only by your service provider)

Like stated the only way I have solved the issue was to delete the group chats and individual chats that had names tied to them.. It seems to be happening to my wife and I, she’ll get my messages and I’ll get here’s.. But it happens when we are tied in a group chat and individual chat with that one person..

So I made them on their end delete and messages containing my Wife and I in them and retry and had been a success...

Will this work all the time?, I hope so! But the fix needs to happening. We’ve been tied together for years!

Maybe next trip to apple I’ll see what the “Geniuses” say and worse case I have them set up a separate iCloud login for my wife without losing a single thing!

Verizon does not need to be contacted - this is an Apple thing. Verizon call network works off the SIM card, and doesn’t care what ApplD is logged in. It’s not possible to know why it’s only you having this issue - but it is knowable what the root cause is for your family - shared AppleID. He can play around with the settings, etc and you can delete threads, etc. but it may crop up again.

PCA - This particular issue is crappy...my family has had the same one and it’s not been fun. The reality is it’s partly semantics, but that won’t help solve your problem. Apple knows people do this, and they cannot stop you, so in that sense one can argue they allow you to do it - but that’s not really “supporting” or “allowing in special sitaruions”. The reality is the system isn’t built to be used by multiple humans - even though iMessage worked fine across multiple devices on the same AppleID prior to this release. I know that’s an unsatisfying answer, but it seems to be the truth of the situation. He can keep her on his AppleID, and you may be able to get it working - but just know that software and databases and data tables not intended for that use may (probably will) kludge up again. In the end, you can do it, but the root cause here is the shared AppleID being used for something it’s not built for.

Did you see this? Seems like this might be what everyone was clamoring for. Maybe I’m reading it wrong.

About iOS 12 Updates - Apple Support

Resolves an issue that caused messages to be merged into one thread when two users were signed in with the same Apple ID on multiple iPhones

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.

pencil1992 wrote:

Sorry for the confusion, they both still have same Apple ID

You have been told multiple times. Don't do that. The root cause of your problem is sharing an ID.

Try going to contacts, edit the contact and go to the bottom to see if they are linked. If they’re linked, try unlinking them. I have no idea if this will work But it’s worth a try.

Upgrading all of the devices in my household to iOS 12.1 has fixed the issue.

Are your parents sharing an Apple ID? If they are, they need to update to iOS 12.1 as well.