Hi all - when I installed iOS12 on my devices I got a notification that iMessage conversations coming from or to a specific person would be merged into one single conversation thread, if they were seperated.
I did not observe that this happened - I still have several iMessage conversation threads from the same Person. So nothing has changed. Does this work for someone else?
Thanks, Stefan
iPhone X, iOS 12
I contacted Apple support under Iphone, appleid issue, an agent called me back within 3 minutes.
Step 1: She had me go into settings/ messages/ send-receive at and only have your cell# checked (no email address) on all 4 phones.
Step 2: She had us delete any group texts and individual texts with all 4 phones on my appleid.
Things cleared up !!!! She had the issue with a client day before and this fixed them up as well. She said after IOS12 update it was still trying to find/confused in delivery to those in the phones in the apple id. Hope this helps everyone out as I really did NOT want to create 3 more apple ids.
Apple has long warned against using a single AppleID for sharing - their official position is to use one AppleID for each person, and that references to a particular AppleID will be treated as if it were the same person.
False alarm. Ugh. So frustrating. My wife and I cannot text each other again this morning. Perhaps there is a group text somewhere that I missed that still needs to be deleted. This problem shouldn't be happening now that I've created separate Apple IDs for everyone. Please, anyone have any suggestions???
Agreed. Williams answer is not a solution to this problem. Being told that a single Apple ID can’t be shared (especially amongst a family with small children) is ridiculous. This is a problem that started with iOS 12 and it needs to be fixed by Apple
This is a completely unhelpful reply. This issue started with IOS12 and should be resolved as a very high priority bug fix. The poster is technically correct. But there maybe very legitimate reasons why people such as in our family are using the same apple ID and have been for MANY years. Let’s solve the issue please Apple.
Yes, keeping my fingers crossed this Apple “improvement” is removed in the next update, or at least we’re given the choice if we want our messages to be merged or not. I don’t want my little kids having their own Apple ID’s. Apple should understand our situations.
Not entirely true, William. I agree that they are designed that way today, but for us true early adopters - Apple had not designed it that way. Many people locked into a single one as a family many years (12+) back. I've had several conversations with Apple support regarding this over the years, and each one had a common thread of 'that's fine, we understand that you go way back, no need to move to individual AppleIDs'. There is a lot of banter across support threads, some of it disrespectful, assigning blame and painting as 'stupid' people who have a family under one AppleID. Not saying your post was in that vain, rather, just wanted to share a bit more context for the true origination of the single AppleID from many years back. I agree that having a single ID for each person is the best way forward - and I'm sure the majority of families in this situation would agree. However, the not small population of families who are in this situation (Single ID) are frustrated as Apple has been silent/passive on pushing people to move away from that situation and has gone so far as to not break support 'family' functionality of multiple devices under one Apple ID. Until now, it seems.
I have exact same issue Stevedore761
Hi, thanks for the answer. What do you mean by "delete group texts and individual texts"? Which text do you mean?
Thanks, Stefan
from each phone sharing the appleid.
I did this and it worked for a while but within an hour different contacts (but same Apple ID) were merged again.
It’s doing it to me also and all in our family have separate Apple IDs
Again, doing it to me also even with separate Apple IDs for all of us.
Yes, so annoying. The only way to avoid the problem at this point would be if Apple let us downgrade our iOS’s back to iOS 11 or earlier, and we know that ain’t gonna happen!
THANK YOU! THANKS YOU! This fixed my
roblem! The apple support gal I talked to wasn’t aware of this fix. spent almost 4 hours today trying to fix this! Successful at last!
Same here. Terribly frustrating and maddening. Please Apple, fix this problem. This is poor customer service.
Merging iMessage Conversations in iOS 12
