iOS 8.1: 'Text Message Forwarding' Activation Requires iMessage Email Address

[Westside guy]

Safari has been solid for me. What device are you on?

Safari has been rather problematic on my iPad Mini running 8.x. It's also been occasionally unstable on my Mac under Yosemite beta, but that's at least a beta.

Prior to this, Safari was always rock solid for me - that's what's so maddening. On my iPad now, it freezes mid-form fairly regularly (eventually it crashes the browser). On my Mac, the crashes are less frequent... But it can crash hard and take my login session with it! That shouldn't be possible.

 

[NightFox]

Not sure why that would be a surprise to anyone. Your Messages account is tied to your Apple ID, which is your email address.

Actually your Apple ID isn't necessarily your email address - there's lots of us out here who've had Apple IDs from long before the days of iCloud and are now stuck in the very confusing situation where our Apple ID might be something like neil@myoldisp.com but the email address for that same Apple ID could be neil123@icloud.com

I've got 2 Apple IDs (not by choice), and the iCloud email address for one of them is the Apple ID for the other Lots of us have been asking Apple to let us merge Apple IDs in the past; they've acknowledged it's an issue but that was a couple of years ago and still nothing

 

[chrisrosemusic1]

On a separate note: quick reply no longer shows the keyboard. This was my most used new feature. Annoying.

 

[FieldingMellish]

Safari has been rather problematic on my iPad Mini running 8.x. It's also been occasionally unstable on my Mac under Yosemite beta, but that's at least a beta.

Prior to this, Safari was always rock solid for me - that's what's so maddening. On my iPad now, it freezes mid-form fairly regularly (eventually it crashes the browser). On my Mac, the crashes are less frequent... But it can crash hard and take my login session with it! That shouldn't be possible.

Safari on my updated mid 2011 air failed to download a software update from DxO software. It hung midway on two attempts. It worked fine downloading with Firefox.

 

[afd]

Have set up my iMac and iPad, now I have to wait for a non iOS friend to text...
I have been missing this feature since 2007, I had BluePhone Elite installed on my 12" Powerbook, it connected to my SE K700i and allowed you to send and receive texts and use your Mac as a speaker phone.

 

[acblue94]

Everyone. Just go to settings>message on your phone and you will see a setting to text message forwarding. Click on it and you will be all set.

 

[PowerBook-G5]

Sucess!

After hours of frustration, I finally got it to work. I forget what EXACTLY I did, but this could be the gist of it. First I set my iMessage "Start new conversations from" to the SAME email. Then, I tried to pair my phone and MBP from the Menu Bar icon, and it connected (click on the icon, then click on your iPhone in the list, then click "connect to network"). After that, I opened the iMessage settings on my phone, went to Text Message Forwarding, then toggled my MBP to "on". My phone then asked for the code, which my MBP supplied a minute later. Then, once they were connected, Handoff and SMS Relay worked like a charm (except for finding non-iOS friends to test-spam this with, it is rather hard sometimes, but I was able to find one). After all of this, I changed my "start new conversations from" back to my phone number and it still worked!

NOTE: I was riding in a car (NOT driving lol) while doing this, so I was using a Personal Hotspot from my phone that I set up manually. When using Handoff, the blue Hotspot bar at the top of my iPhone said that it had two connections, not one like it usually does. I checked, and nobody in the car was on it, and I don't think that someone was tailgating me and broke into my Personal Hotspot. Perhaps this is a bug, or it offers some insight as how this works.

EDIT: Now that I am in a building with WiFi, my iPhone does not want to connect to my MBP via Bluetooth. When I switch in my Personal Hotspot, then the iPhone and MBP connect just fine and Handoff and SMS Relay work. Albeit this is not my home network, so they may have blocked some of the stuff here. I'll have to test it on my home network later and update this.

 

[marcel500]

The same applies to enable iPhone cellular calls, unfortunately deactivating doesn't work here, the email ID has to be enabled all the time.

 

[Azzin]

Everyone. Just go to settings>message on your phone and you will see a setting to text message forwarding. Click on it and you will be all set.

My Wife's iPhone 6 (updated to iOS 8.2 last night) doesn't have that option.

I've turned iMessage off and back on again, she already has her email address/Apple ID in there, but I removed and re-added it anyway, no change.

[Edit] - Just got it working by turning on her iPad and "accepting" the pairing, which fired up the code to put in her phone.

Glanced at her phone and there was a box asking for the code.

Sorted.

 

[joshie199]

Sync Existing iMessages & SMS?

Can anyone help? Setup up successfully between my Mac & iPhone but when I open the messages app on my mac none of the existing messages that were already on my iPhone will show in there, is there a way to sync this?

Sent a new message from my mac and that showed on my iPhone straight away…

 

[Jordan921]

Everyone. Just go to settings>message on your phone and you will see a setting to text message forwarding. Click on it and you will be all set.

I don't see text message forwarding.

 

[Jordan921]

Everyone. Just go to settings>message on your phone and you will see a setting to text message forwarding. Click on it and you will be all set.

Nvm had to restart phone and was able to see both my mba and iPad air.

 

[acblue94]

I don't see text message forwarding.

Really. It should be there. Have you done a reset of the iPad and phone yet?

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Nvm had to restart phone and was able to see both my mba and iPad air.[/QUOTE

Ok great.

 

[FieldingMellish]

It worked, but not with the Mac that I wanted it to. I wonder if it can work with my main laptop, not my backup one sitting in the house.

 

[macduke]

One of the options it gave me in Yosemite was to send the code via text to my iPhone. I did that last night and everything activated fine. Haven't upgraded my iPad yet.

 

[jon159785]

phone number turned on

After playing with it for some time, I actually turned off my apple id email address and enabled my phone number on both devices (iphone/ipad), and then it worked. Previously I had my phone number turned off in the ipad.

 

[brianvictor7]

it just works

Is it just me or does setting this thing up seem overlerly complicated? I have to go into multiple settings to turn Continuity and SMS on.

----------

After hours of frustration, I finally got it to work. I forget what EXACTLY I did, but this could be the gist of it. First I set my iMessage "Start new conversations from" to the SAME email. Then, I tried to pair my phone and MBP from the Menu Bar icon, and it connected (click on the icon, then click on your iPhone in the list, then click "connect to network"). After that, I opened the iMessage settings on my phone, went to Text Message Forwarding, then toggled my MBP to "on". My phone then asked for the code, which my MBP supplied a minute later. Then, once they were connected, Handoff and SMS Relay worked like a charm (except for finding non-iOS friends to test-spam this with, it is rather hard sometimes, but I was able to find one). After all of this, I changed my "start new conversations from" back to my phone number and it still worked!

NOTE: I was riding in a car (NOT driving lol) while doing this, so I was using a Personal Hotspot from my phone that I set up manually. When using Handoff, the blue Hotspot bar at the top of my iPhone said that it had two connections, not one like it usually does. I checked, and nobody in the car was on it, and I don't think that someone was tailgating me and broke into my Personal Hotspot. Perhaps this is a bug, or it offers some insight as how this works.

EDIT: Now that I am in a building with WiFi, my iPhone does not want to connect to my MBP via Bluetooth. When I switch in my Personal Hotspot, then the iPhone and MBP connect just fine and Handoff and SMS Relay work. Albeit this is not my home network, so they may have blocked some of the stuff here. I'll have to test it on my home network later and update this.

Thanks for this post. This is valuable troubleshooting information. I have been trying for the last 24 hours to figure this thing out.

 

[Bootes]

I got the message and don't have my iCloud email on my phone. I do have the iCloud account with everything turned on other than backup and email...

 

[maginate]

I kept running into a brick wall on this and could not get my iMac to show me the code for activation. I finally got it to work and I have the steps here.

Settings > Messages > Send & Receive: "You can be reached by iMessage at" needs to have your phone number and your iCloud email ticked - phone is automatically ticked. > Under "Start New Conversation From" need to have your iPhone number ticked, not your iCloud email.

Back out of that screen.

Then go into Text Message Forwarding and select device you want to connect to. You will get a prompt to enter the code given to you by the other device. You look on your iMessage screen on the computer and you will see the code pop up in the window.

I know this is mighty detailed, but this is how I got it to work. Cheers

 

[Arelunde]

It's not working (message forwarding) with my MBP late 2011, iPhone 6+ and iPad Air 1. The messages with the confirmation number never show up and I have all my email addresses checked as well as the phone number on my iPhone. Maybe I need to change the "send from" on my iPhone to my email address rather than the phone number?? Will give it a try.

 

[dannys1]

If I turn the e-mail address off on my phone it stops working.

 

[PlutoPrime]

I fixed mine by adding my email address. The girlfriend's just worked.

Really frustrated me because I wanted it and had to struggle to get it set up. She didn't and it worked. :/

I don't know why, but I read that last sentence as "Really frustrated me because she wanted it and I had to struggle to get it up."

 

[theanorak]

I have a bunch of email addresses active in iMessages on iPhone, yet, no code.

I already had a bunch of email addresses too. Turning iMessage off on both devices, then turning it back on (one device at a time) did the trick. Hope it works for you too.

 

[827538]

Safari has been rather problematic on my iPad Mini running 8.x. It's also been occasionally unstable on my Mac under Yosemite beta, but that's at least a beta.

Prior to this, Safari was always rock solid for me - that's what's so maddening. On my iPad now, it freezes mid-form fairly regularly (eventually it crashes the browser). On my Mac, the crashes are less frequent... But it can crash hard and take my login session with it! That shouldn't be possible.

I had some problems with Safari crashing as well in the Public Beta but now that it's live it's been rock solid, same for my iPhone. I'm also running Adblock and Ghostery extensions on it.

 

[slicecom]

I had the same problem with all the betas. Once you turn the email back off, it might work for a few days, but will stop working. The email has to be enabled for some stupid reason.