iPhone Xs/8/7/6 users
are facing iMessage merging different contact conversation to one thread
after iOS 12 update. One iMessage thread shared between two contacts in iOS 12
on iphone/ipad. This iMessages from different contacts combining to one thread issue
is mainly faced by iPhone users with iPhone users with same apple id. The
messages merge will start to happen randomly at any moment and even if you delete
the merged thread and start two new ones (one with each person) it may work for
a short time, then out of the blue they will be merged again to one single
thread.
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| iMessage merging threads in iOS 12, image:reddit.com |
The imessage merge issue
was not happening before the iOS 12. This is really big issue in iMessage for
users who are using single Apple id on multiple iPhones as the all the conversation
will be mixed up and start to merge into one another.
The problem becomes much
serious when user can’t reply to message thread but only last one who messaged him.
But there are no updates from Apple about this bug.
One iphone users
reported the imessage message merge issue as on iOS 12 :
“It is merging the
messages, in fact yesterday it merged my wife and I on my phone; so my thread
where I had been chatting with my wife now shows my name ... chatting with
myself.”
How to fix iMessage merging threads in iOS 12 :
It may seem that in iOS
12 the root cause of iMessage merging threads with same apple Id is a bug that
Apple has introduced in iOS 12, that is causing merging conversations from separate
phone numbers when they use the same Apple ID which never happened before in
iOS 11/10. But if you are looking for a fix please read below points :
Fix 1: Turn off Notification Grouping
iOS 12 has a change in
Notifications that will allow a number of the same types of content to be in a
single notification. Please make sure the delte all affected iMessage threads. If you go to
Settings>Notifications>Messages, you will see a setting for Notification
Grouping-> By default it is on Automatic. You can turn it off, and then all
of your messages will show individual notifications and not just a single
notification if you have multiple Messages. It could possibly fix the issue.
Fix 2: send & receive settings
Go to settings->
messages-> send & receive. Make sure you only have your phone number
checked. Do make sure your Apple ID is not used for iMessages.
Fix 3: Delete and re-add the contact
It’s a temporary fix and
more like a workaround. To quickly get rid of imessage merge issue in
iphone/iPad is to delete the thread, delete both their contacts, then create
new contacts for them and open new threads. This may work find but can reoccur
again after some days.
*be sure to save any precious photos or media that you don't want
to lose when deleting the old chat in Messages
Fix 3:
Create separate Apple id for each iphone/ipad
If you have observed
while upgrading to iOS 12 you might have received a notification that iMessage
conversations coming from or to a specific person would be merged into one
single conversation thread, if they were separated.
So this could be an intended
behaviour from Apple in iOS 12 for considering all devices to be used by same
users having same apple id.
It
would be better that each have their own Apple ID then set up Family Sharing.
However some iPhone
users may find it difficult to maintain so many different user Ids for all of
family members as it would increase the burden to manage all of them like linking
to credits card etc.
Comments
I have verified that only the phone number and not the apple ID on the devices is selected to send/receive messages.
I have created NEW apple ID's for my kids so that each of us have individual apple id's.
We still have the issue. Creating separate Apple ID's did non solve this.