Two text windows for same person

DiscoDude77 · May 20, 2015

So,

For some reason, I think since IOS 8 updated, I now have two text windows I receive from my friend Michelle. They aren't duplicate messages, they are different. One is utilized more than the other but it's annoying and I really want to consolidated them into one window but not sure how.

I only have one contact for her, and both text windows link to the same contact for her.

help!

Applejuiced · May 20, 2015

Is one maybe for imessages and one for regular texts?
Is she using an email address for imessage and also texting from a phone number thus showing up as different conversations?

motulist · May 20, 2015

In either text message window, click:

details

(i) next to their name

Edit

LINKED CONTACTS - Link contacts

then add the alternate name of the contact entry for that same person.

DiscoDude77 · May 20, 2015

She only has one text window she is sending to me (she explained), but somehow I am getting two from her as I said.

She isn't emailing me as I get separate emails from her.

motulist · May 20, 2015

Do the steps I wrote above.

DiscoDude77 · May 20, 2015

I tried that - I only have one contact for her so I can't link anything.

C DM · May 20, 2015

Sounds like sometimes she is sending from her phone number and other times might be from her iCloud ID which can appear as to different conversations from my experience.

mpavilion · May 20, 2015

This happens to me too, with my wife – I think it starts when one of us sends the other a photo directly from the Photos app (i.e., rather then opening the text thread and inserting the photo from there); a new thread is sometimes created when the photo is sent? (Not positive, though.)

Sorry I can't advise on how to "combine" them; but I have never understood why so many people are intent on "saving" their long-running message threads! (They're ephemeral to me – I just delete them when they start getting long.) Not knocking you, at all... it's just interesting to me.

Applejuiced · May 21, 2015

DiscoDude77 said:
She only has one text window she is sending to me (she explained), but somehow I am getting two from her as I said.

She isn't emailing me as I get separate emails from her.

We're not talking about emails.
iMessages can come from Apple id instead of a phone number.

Dino F · May 21, 2015

DiscoDude77 said:
So,

For some reason, I think since IOS 8 updated, I now have two text windows I receive from my friend Michelle. They aren't duplicate messages, they are different. One is utilized more than the other but it's annoying and I really want to consolidated them into one window but not sure how.

I only have one contact for her, and both text windows link to the same contact for her.

help!

...there is an easy way to see where the messages are coming from.

Go into the first text window of your friend and click on 'Details' (top right). Then, tap on the 'i' button which will then go into the contact itself. The phone number she is texting from will be blue (any other numbers or email addresses will be black).

Then do the same in the second window. If the blue number in the second window is different than the number in the first window, then there is your problem.

jdusoccer12 · May 21, 2015

By any chance does she have an Apple Watch. When I got mine it started doing this to people and when my friend got on the same thing happened as well. You don't even have to send the messages from the Apple Watch just having one seemed to cause the problem for me. What we did was uncheck the emails from our send & receive in settings. I have not checked since the update to see if that fixed it.

imagineadam · May 21, 2015

Yep. This has been happening to me and my wife and a few other people I've texted. Sometimes it randomly starts a new thread with the same person. No settings have changed it's just a weird glitch. Sometimes other people have told me it shows as being sent from my email address too. Weird bugs.

----------

Dino F said:
...there is an easy way to see where the messages are coming from.

Go into the first text window of your friend and click on 'Details' (top right). Then, tap on the 'i' button which will then go into the contact itself. The phone number she is texting from will be blue (any other numbers or email addresses will be black).

Then do the same in the second window. If the blue number in the second window is different than the number in the first window, then there is your problem.

Yup it's starts a new thread when it's coming from her email address... Why does it sometimes send it from her email address?

C DM · May 21, 2015

imagineadam said:
Yep. This has been happening to me and my wife and a few other people I've texted. Sometimes it randomly starts a new thread with the same person. No settings have changed it's just a weird glitch. Sometimes other people have told me it shows as being sent from my email address too. Weird bugs.

----------

Yup it's starts a new thread when it's coming from her email address... Why does it sometimes send it from her email address?

Has she checked the send from options in iMessage settings? Any other devices where iMessage is being used?

bushido · May 21, 2015

this happenes with a friend of mine. when hes on his mac i get them through his apple id email and when he texts me on his iphone i get it in a seperate window with his number even tho i have both added to his contact. when i reply he gets it in one conversation no matter if i use his # or email. so for him it is working properly. oddly on my iPad it ends up as one conversation. i just learnt to live with it lol

ecschwarz · May 21, 2015

I was on the sending end of this recently with a friend - I have every device (work Mac, home Macs, iPhone) set to use my phone number and for some reason my iPhone was still sending it with an email address, my Watch was sending it with the phone number. On my end, everything was the same message, but on her end, it was split as two. Deleting both on hers, and me unchecking and re-checking the email addresses for "You can be reached by iMessage at" on the phone seems to have fixed it, despite "Start new conversations from" had my phone number the whole time.

james92se · May 21, 2015

This happens to me quite often with two of my friends and it's been happening to me long before iOS 8 ever came around. One of the buddy's doesn't even own an iPad or any other iDevice other than his iPhone. And it doesn't even happen in situations in which he starts a new conversation - we can be texting real-time and he can sometimes reply immediately and it'll just pop up into a different thread to me. On his end he still has his single thread and I can reply to either thread on my end and he gets them inline on his single thread. It gets pretty annoying but I usually just delete one of the threads.

My other friend who it happens with I can tell it's usually because he's switching between iPhone and iPad. BUT - I already have both his phone number and e-mail address added to my contact for him. But it will still sporadically pop up with different threads. Sometimes I somehow get three threads for him going at once.

The common denominator between them is that they both have T-Mobile. Not sure why the carrier would affect it, but they are literally the only people that it ever happens to me with. They are also the only people I message who use T-Mobile. And the buddy with the iPad, he uses his T-Mobile mobile connection as a hot spot for his iPad.

So I know it shouldn't really, but in my case I really chalk it up to T-Mobile's goofyness.

Paco II · May 25, 2015

Two text windows for same person

This sounds like a problem that has been around a while now. Friend send iMessage from phone, id is their phone number. Same friend sends messages from their Mac, id is their email address. Sadly Messages app is not 'smart' enough to combine conversations.

Nickpocalypse · May 25, 2015

This used to happen with my girlfriend; I'd have two conversations with her (on my end only); one when she texts with her iPhone (Phone Number), one when she texts with her iPad (email)

It wasn't a huge problem, but I was always worried that in an emergency I'd accidentally send her a message to her iPad and she wouldn't receive it if she was out.

Always thought iMessage was supposed to just consolidate the conversations into one stream, regardless of where the messages were being sent from? It hasn't been a huge issue lately, luckily.

imlovinit · May 25, 2015

I've had this problem multiple times over the past year. Super annoying. Often when someone gets a new phone. What we usually do is make sure our iMessage is both turned on, turn off any unwanted emails for send/recieve (just the #), delete the threads then both reset our network settings. It ends up working for us.

ATC · May 25, 2015

I had the same problem as the OP. My wife's messages would randomly be split between two message threads. I read a post somewhere on how to fix it and it worked for us; here's what we did:

1. Go into Settings > Messages > Send & Receive
2. Uncheck all but your cell number (I had two email addresses and my cell#)
3. Do the same on my wife's iPhone
4. Delete one of the message threads

Never had an issue since.

Two text windows for same person

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