iMessage notification, showing phone number

[circatee]

Over the past few days, I have noticed that when I receive an iMessage, on the MBA, it will show the persons phone number.
On my iPhone and iPad, it shows the persons name. My OS is Big Sur (where it certainly worked before).

Any ideas on how to resolve this? Thanks

Same Apple ID account being used on all devices. And, Contacts is not checked on any device in the iCloud account settings.
No need, since my Contacts are in my Outlook.com account (which shows on all my Apple devices). Odd...

 

[Cicnod]

SO I had this same problem on my computer and spent hours on the phone with Apple. What it came down to was that my Address Book on my phone it was set on Google (gmail) as default instead of iCloud.

Go into your iphone (or iPad) (or both) and click settings

Under "settings" scroll down to "contacts"

Under "Default account" make sure it is "iCloud" (mine was gmail before).

Please let me know if the fixes it.

When I did it my computer finally changed to names instead of numbers.

ETA. You may also want to open contacts on computer, go to preferences and make sure default account is also iCloud.

 

[circatee]

SO I had this same problem on my computer and spent hours on the phone with Apple. What it came down to was that my Address Book on my phone it was set on Google (gmail) as default instead of iCloud.

Go into your iphone (or iPad) (or both) and click settings

Under "settings" scroll down to "contacts"

Under "Default account" make sure it is "iCloud" (mine was gmail before).

Please let me know if the fixes it.

When I did it my computer finally changed to names instead of numbers.

ETA. You may also want to open contacts on computer, go to preferences and make sure default account is also iCloud.

Thanks. But, I can’t set iCloud as default for Contacts. It has never been that. Plus, my Contacts are in Outlook.com, always has been. Thus, the default has to be Outlook.com.

Ps: in addition, Contacts is not even on in iCloud since I don’t use it. Same for Calendar.

 

[Cicnod]

Thanks. But, I can’t set iCloud as default for Contacts. It has never been that. Plus, my Contacts are in Outlook.com, always has been. Thus, the default has to be Outlook.com.

Ps: in addition, Contacts is not even on in iCloud since I don’t use it. Same for Calendar.

Sorry. My guess is that is where the disconnect is happening. Your computer is defaulting to a different contacts list which is why it won't see the names and only the numbers. Only guess is try importing those contacts from outlook into your address book (contacts) on the computer.

 

[MacCraig Pro]

I had this and I restarted my MBA and after that it was fine.

Just another of those Big Sur bugs!

 

[circatee]

I had this and I restarted my MBA and after that it was fine.

Just another of those Big Sur bugs!

I restarted it a moment ago. Now to await a new iMessage. Typical, I bet I don't receive one for ages now - LOL

 

[Jason2000]

I had this issue before Big Sur. Anyways the way I fixed it was to go into the Contacts settings on your iPhone. Select Short Name and toggle that on and then off (or off and then back on). This is what fixed it for me. Good luck.

 

[circatee]

I had this issue before Big Sur. Anyways the way I fixed it was to go into the Contacts settings on your iPhone. Select Short Name and toggle that on and then off (or off and then back on). This is what fixed it for me. Good luck.

Thanks. I will do so shortly. Still haven't received an iMessage, since my last post - LOL

 

[circatee]

I had this issue before Big Sur. Anyways the way I fixed it was to go into the Contacts settings on your iPhone. Select Short Name and toggle that on and then off (or off and then back on). This is what fixed it for me. Good luck.

Thanks for the tip. I turned the option off, and it now works as expected.

 

[ght56]

I've had this issue in Catalina where it displays only the number in the notifications but generally shows the name in the Messages window. I am not sure what causes it but it seems to be aggravated by the usage of multiple user accounts with fast user switching and especially when being logged into two admin accounts simultaneously. Apple has been unable provide a solution but it is definitely related to Contacts somehow. I have tried the toggle short names and it fixes it temporarily...however, after logging into the other account, sometimes it reverts back to this behavior. I do not currently do Messages in iCloud, which I plan to try next to try to fix it.

 

[Jason2000]

Thanks for the tip. I turned the option off, and it now works as expected.

Glad I could help.

 

[dkujay]

I've had this issue in Catalina where it displays only the number in the notifications but generally shows the name in the Messages window. I am not sure what causes it but it seems to be aggravated by the usage of multiple user accounts with fast user switching and especially when being logged into two admin accounts simultaneously. Apple has been unable provide a solution but it is definitely related to Contacts somehow. I have tried the toggle short names and it fixes it temporarily...however, after logging into the other account, sometimes it reverts back to this behavior. I do not currently do Messages in iCloud, which I plan to try next to try to fix it.

Any luck? I'm positive I'm seeing the same issue due multiple users as well.

 

[soccerjoshj07]

I had this issue before Big Sur. Anyways the way I fixed it was to go into the Contacts settings on your iPhone. Select Short Name and toggle that on and then off (or off and then back on). This is what fixed it for me. Good luck.

Same thing after I turned on iCloud after the initial account setup on a new mbp. Did a reboot and was still just getting phone numbers.

Doing what you mentioned and rebooting the Mac again seemed to fix it.