If you switched from iPhone to Android, you might encounter a frustrating bug where some text messages aren’t delivered to you, and neither you nor the person sending the text knows it. For a long time, Apple didn’t acknowledge this bug, so there wasn’t much to do to fix it. However, that changed after Apple released a free tool that removes your phone number from iMessage and gets your texts moving again.
The Cause of the Bug
When two iPhone users text each other, by default their messages are sent through iMessage, Apple’s free iPhone-to-iPhone messaging tool. You’ll know a text was sent using iMessage because your word balloon in the Messages app is blue. When one person in a conversation has an iPhone and the other person has another kind of phone, for example, an Android, traditional text messaging is used (represented by the green word balloon).
The problem happens when someone who previously had an iPhone and used iMessage switches to Android or another platform. In that scenario, the Apple system sometimes fails to recognize that a switch was made and tries to deliver the text using iMessage.
Because the iMessage network is separate from the standard text messaging network, the message dead-ends and is never delivered to its recipient. To make matters worse, the sender doesn’t know that the message wasn’t delivered.
Fix the Bug With Apple’s Free Tool
Apple released a free tool that lets former iPhone users unregister their phone numbers from iMessage, which prevents texts sent to them from falling prey to the bug. If you used to be an iPhone user, and switched to Android and aren’t getting some texts, do the following:
Need to delete any of those missing text messages? Deleting texts on the iPhone is easy.
- Go to the Apple Deregister iMessage website.
- Scroll to the section titled No longer have your iPhone.
- Enter your phone number (this assumes that you carried your phone number from your iPhone to your new Android phone) and select Send Code.
- You will receive a text message on your new phone with a 6-digit confirmation code.
- Enter that code into the website, and select Submit. This removes your number from iMessage and solves the problem.
Fix the iMessage Bug Before Switching to Android
If you’re planning to switch to Android, but haven’t done so yet, there’s an easier way to prevent the bug from happening. Remove your number from iMessage. This means that you won’t get free iMessages any longer. However, those messages are delivered as text messages so that you don’t miss anything. To do this:
Go to the Apple Deregister iMessage website.
Scroll to the section titled No longer have your iPhone.
Enter your phone number (this assumes that you carried your phone number from your iPhone to your new Android phone) and select Send Code.
You will receive a text message on your new phone with a 6-digit confirmation code.
Enter that code into the website, and select Submit. This removes your number from iMessage and solves the problem.
- Tap the Settings app.
- Tap Messages.
- Move the iMessage toggle switch to Off/white.
Fix the Bug If You Still Have Your iPhone
If you switched to Android, but haven’t recycled or sold your used iPhone, there’s another way to solve the bug. In that case:
Tap the Settings app.
Tap Messages.
Move the iMessage toggle switch to Off/white.
- Take the SIM card out of your new Android phone, then insert it into the iPhone. This temporarily moves your phone number back to the iPhone.
- Tap the Settings app.
- Tap Messages.
- Move the iMessage toggle switch to Off/white.
- Put the SIM card back in your new phone.
Take the SIM card out of your new Android phone, then insert it into the iPhone. This temporarily moves your phone number back to the iPhone.
Tap the Settings app.
Tap Messages.
Move the iMessage toggle switch to Off/white.
Put the SIM card back in your new phone.
The Android bug isn’t the only problem that you can run into when sending texts. When iPhone text messages don’t send, learn how to fix it.
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