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iMessage on Mac not showing contact names
- Thread starter Hicksmat1976
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My problem got solved when I made sure all my phone numbers are correct on gmail
I found that some of my phone numbers got weird characters like 818-%98-0901
Once I fixed that few bad numbers everything worked
For me it was related to the country code as others have suggested. I can replicate the problem back and forth too. The thing is, it seems to be totally random in terms of which numbers have the issue.
I'm in Canada so it's +1. I have a contact that I message often and her number is saved in iCloud as (403) xxx. In the Messages app on my Macbook she shows up as +1 (403) xxx.
The second I add +1 to the start of her number her name shows up in Messages. When I remove it in iCloud, Messages just shows her number again, starting with +1. Very strange.
To make things more strange, I don't add+1 to any local numbers that I save so almost all of my contacts should have this issue, right? Why is it just her and a handful of others that this applies to? Why does Messages see +1 in front of her number when Contacts on my Macbook, iCloud and iPhone all show her without it?
Very strange indeed. At least I know how to fix it now, it was driving me crazy!
I'm in Canada so it's +1. I have a contact that I message often and her number is saved in iCloud as (403) xxx. In the Messages app on my Macbook she shows up as +1 (403) xxx.
The second I add +1 to the start of her number her name shows up in Messages. When I remove it in iCloud, Messages just shows her number again, starting with +1. Very strange.
To make things more strange, I don't add+1 to any local numbers that I save so almost all of my contacts should have this issue, right? Why is it just her and a handful of others that this applies to? Why does Messages see +1 in front of her number when Contacts on my Macbook, iCloud and iPhone all show her without it?
Very strange indeed. At least I know how to fix it now, it was driving me crazy!
This may be a repeat, but on the Mac I went into the Contacts app, which I don't use, and simply enabled my Exchange account. Since I use Office 365, apparently all my contacts were there. I don't know what turned it off, but reenabling it populated all the names.
If everything is synced correctly in your iCloud on both devices. Just by adding the country code to the contact will work fine, and the contact name will start showing up on your Mac iMessage app. Had this issue for months and could not figure it out! Everything is working fine now.
Had this issue on my Mac with contacts not syncing. Was eventually prompted, after digging around through settings, to re-login to my iCloud. Suddenly password stopped working and had to create a new one (even after successfully completely two-factor authentication with my iPhone).
Once done, restarted, logged into iCloud once. Contacts returned.
Once done, restarted, logged into iCloud once. Contacts returned.
I'm having a similar problem. Sorry if this was already discussed in this thread. I had an older MacBook Air that sort of stopped recognizing my wife's contact. So if she sent me an iMessage sometimes the notification would say "Maybe: my wife's name" when she is already a contact. Her contact picture is also not syncing to the MacBook Air. So the picture is just her initials when it should be the picture. When I click on her contact card the picture is there. I thought maybe it was just the old MacBook Air showing its age but now it's still happening on our brand new MacBook Air. Was there any solution for this behavior?
Holy thread bump Batman ...... big sur = big problem. The issue has returned. Dammit.
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I've just had this issue. I'm using a 27" Mid 2010 iMac running macOS High Sierra and an iPhone 11 Pro Max. The Messages app on my iMac was only showing contact numbers (in the +44 format) and on my iPhone the contacts were displaying by name.To fix the issue I opened the Contacts app (on my iMac) and signed into my iCloud account (same account I use on my iPhone and the iMac messages app). I enabled the my account in the Contacts app and set the "fetch" option to "automatically". Once my contacts had finished syncing to my iMac the Messages app (on my iMac) then showed the contacts by name.
Solution to your problem or have I answered incorrectly some how?
I've had this problem for awhile and I finally figured it out (after looking at all the options listed that didn't help at all). For some reason my contacts were being synced to my gmail account on my phone, I had to go to the contacts app on my phone and put iCloud as the default account that didn't work right away until I figured out that all my contacts were now in gmail. So I deleted all my third party accounts in the contacts on my phone and left iCloud then resigned in into all of them and then transfer the contacts from gmail to my iPhone and now I'm unlinking the contacts from my gmail account. Check your contact info of any person you have at the every bottom in the editing screen there will be a link option and if there's another account linked it'll show that account and your iCloud account, in my case it was gmail and iCloud linked together to multiple contacts.🤦♀️