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iMessage on Mac not showing contact names

Havent we learned anything yet? This is beta software with a million of bugs. And it will stay a beta with allllll the bugs, till the new version comes out. So untill we see sierra very high and ios 12 this will stay beta and we are all just unpaid beta testers :)
 
The problem has just started happening for me on my iMac but not on my MacBook Pro. I've tried all the suggestions in this thread over the past couple of days, but nothing works. I'll just hold off for the update. Bizarrely the numbers correctly show the initials of the contact at the left of the pane, but display their number only everywhere else.
 
Hicksmat1976 said:
Hi again. Ok so in the contacts app on the Mac and under preferences and accounts what services do you see? Are your correct contacts on icloud?
Click to expand...

I was having the same problem and I figured it out (although it's a bit of a long fix). If you go into your Contacts app on your Mac on the left column you'll see the options All Contacts, iCloud, etc. You'll notice that the contacts that don't show up properly in Messages will turn up under "All Contacts" but not under "iCloud". So, pull up the contact that won't display properly in Messages using "All Contacts" and drag it onto "iCloud". This'll merge it with your iCloud-saved contacts database. Now if you quit Messages and go back in it may fix the problem. If not, there's one additional step that I had to take with some of my contacts. In the "To" field at the top of the message where you see the phone number show up, you'll find a little pull-down menu. Click on it and it'll give you some options, one of which is "Add to existing account". Choose that, scroll down to the proper contact and select it.

I know this is an annoying process, but I went through all of them and everything's good now on my end.
 
Same problem; just set up a new Mac and have this issue. On my other Macs (same contacts from iCloud) this doesn't occur. It must be a locale problem.
 
And I have this problem. Never had it with multiple Macs before but I got a new iMac on Thursday, set it up yesterday and this is happening to me as well.
 
OferJ said:
I was having the same problem and I figured it out (although it's a bit of a long fix). If you go into your Contacts app on your Mac on the left column you'll see the options All Contacts, iCloud, etc. You'll notice that the contacts that don't show up properly in Messages will turn up under "All Contacts" but not under "iCloud". So, pull up the contact that won't display properly in Messages using "All Contacts" and drag it onto "iCloud". This'll merge it with your iCloud-saved contacts database. Now if you quit Messages and go back in it may fix the problem. If not, there's one additional step that I had to take with some of my contacts. In the "To" field at the top of the message where you see the phone number show up, you'll find a little pull-down menu. Click on it and it'll give you some options, one of which is "Add to existing account". Choose that, scroll down to the proper contact and select it.

I know this is an annoying process, but I went through all of them and everything's good now on my end.
Click to expand...
[doublepost=1503095460][/doublepost]Hello, I've had the same problem as everyone else. Ive seemed to have fixed it now, If you open iMessage so you have a visual, you can see the phone numbers and profile pictures but know Names thats the issue. Go to System Preferences in the dock then open up internet accounts. I have my contacts with Google and its all set up right, the issue is with OS X Sierra and its bugs going of the post. If I select Google then contacts and then deselect then select contacts again eventually all my contact names came back in the iMessage application.
I presume if you used iCloud you could try the same process by selecting and then deselecting the same contacts tick but in iCloud.
To see if this process works I have tried it a few times by signing out of iMessage and again I lost my names and they reverted back to just phone numbers. Once I followed the above steps the names came back again. As the previous people have said it seems to be a locale issue.
 
boardmanneil said:
[doublepost=1503095460][/doublepost]Hello, I've had the same problem as everyone else. Ive seemed to have fixed it now, If you open iMessage so you have a visual, you can see the phone numbers and profile pictures but know Names thats the issue. Go to System Preferences in the dock then open up internet accounts. I have my contacts with Google and its all set up right, the issue is with OS X Sierra and its bugs going of the post. If I select Google then contacts and then deselect then select contacts again eventually all my contact names came back in the iMessage application.
I presume if you used iCloud you could try the same process by selecting and then deselecting the same contacts tick but in iCloud.
To see if this process works I have tried it a few times by signing out of iMessage and again I lost my names and they reverted back to just phone numbers. Once I followed the above steps the names came back again. As the previous people have said it seems to be a locale issue.
Click to expand...

Didn't work for me. Contacts in iCloud.
 
It hasn't helped me either - All my contacts are in iCloud. It's crazy that it works on my old iMac but doesn't work on this one. As far as I can see, the settings are identical.
 
Relievo said:
There is no 'fix' for this issue, to my knowledge. Apple are aware of it and trying to fix it.

I also had a remote screen-share with Apple, and they didn't have a clue.

^ Like the O.P. said: change the affected numbers from '0' to your country code ('44' in the UK) to make it work again.

Note: this will interfere with services like WhatsApp.
Click to expand...

I have also experienced this - especially upon moving from the US to the UK... my question would be how is this a bug? The correct number format is either +44 or +1 or whatever, and as soon as you do that contacts will recognize the message threads. This happened when my mom visited in July and I got her a Three sim card - she had to change her American contacts to start with a +1 and they all worked after that
 
KUKitch said:
I have also experienced this - especially upon moving from the US to the UK... my question would be how is this a bug? The correct number format is either +44 or +1 or whatever, and as soon as you do that contacts will recognize the message threads. This happened when my mom visited in July and I got her a Three sim card - she had to change her American contacts to start with a +1 and they all worked after that
Click to expand...
The feature dial assist in iOS has meant for years it hasn't mattered whether one puts the country code or not. Messages on Mac OS worked fine until recently in exactly the same way. It is not working as intended.
 
-Ryan- said:
The feature dial assist in iOS has meant for years it hasn't mattered whether one puts the country code or not. Messages on Mac OS worked fine until recently in exactly the same way. It is not working as intended.
Click to expand...

I'm guessing you're talking about making a call or perhaps sending a message? I understand that, and you can send the message, but I've definitely seen the result where it sends but doesn't show the person unless their contact card is correct (eg +1 +44)
 
Hicksmat1976 said:
this isn't on a phone, its on a Mac running latest Sierra.

I think I have narrowed it down to region/locale settings.

until a few versions of OSX ago the iMessage app allowed you to toggle the country of origin/location within the app preferences, and in fact FaceTime still has this setting in its app preferences. iMessage now relies on the region/locale setting on MacOS to determine its current location, and if this is set incorrectly I think it wouldn't know how to translate a mobile number properly e.g. put a +44 in front go it automatically if you were based in the UK. In essence your Mac wouldn't know where in the world you were. I've gone into Terminal and typed "locale" and it is set to GB, but there must be something not quite right so I think I'll keep investigating.
Click to expand...
[doublepost=1503890218][/doublepost]I definitely have the same issue. Where a number in my address book has the international prefix (in my case that's +61 for Australia), the contact name shows up in Messages correctly. Where it doesn't, the number appears with incorrect number formatting for Australia. I've tried signing out and in to ICloud again both on my Max and my iPad. Same issue.

Interestingly when I manually add the international prefix in my address book it doesn't fix the problem in old messages, only for new ones sent or received after I changed it. So messages on my iPad seems incapable of picking up the Region settings in Settings/General/Language&Region/Region which is correctly set to Australia. (Running iOS 10.3.3)

I'd love someone to post a fix for this as it's infuriating.
 
I have a fix for this. It's nothing to do with iMessage really, you need to enable your contacts in the contacts app.

You need to first sync your contacts with iCloud (most of you have already done this).

Then you need to open the contacts application on your mac (command + space to open spotlight -> type 'contacts')

Open contact preferences.

Go to "Accounts."

Click "Enable this Account."

Your computer will now know your contacts and the names should sync in iMessage.
 
T
dogispilot said:
I have a fix for this. It's nothing to do with iMessage really, you need to enable your contacts in the contacts app.

You need to first sync your contacts with iCloud (most of you have already done this).

Then you need to open the contacts application on your mac (command + space to open spotlight -> type 'contacts')

Open contact preferences.

Go to "Accounts."

Click "Enable this Account."

Your computer will now know your contacts and the names should sync in iMessage.
Click to expand...
It was already enabled, and doesn't work. Messages knows who the contact is (it displays the correct picture for example) but doesn't know that 07123 456789 is the same as +447123 456789 because it doesn't respect the locale setting.
 
BahmanS said:
I had the same issue, and eventually I figured what was the problem with me, and I wonder if this might solve the issue for some (if not most):

It turned out that I had two contact lists (Google and iCloud) on my iPhone but only one (iCloud) on my Mac. Most of my contact names were on Google, and once I added this to Mac, all the names came through on iMessages as well!
Click to expand...
This fixed it for me. Thanks!
 
in my case I only have my iCloud contacts enabled on all my Apple devices (1 x iPhone, 1 x iPad, 2 x MacBook). I only have the issue on one MacBook, all the other devices work with iMessage with or without +44 on contacts.
 
I had no contacts in imessage for mac after i updated my iCloud password. For me, the only thing I had to do was go into the iMessage preferences and choose the iCloud under the accounts tab. It wanted me to sign in again. This all happened because I changed my password. Once I logged in again, all the contacts were there.
 
Hi there,

I've had exactly the same problem which stated suddenly one day - not related to an update or new computer. I've had lengthy phone calls with Apple and escalated up to an engineer. They said they'd had a recent surge in this problem but have no idea what is causing it or how to solve it. Fingers crossed for a future update
 
I had this problem on my 2008 MacBook Pro running 10.11.6 (El Capitan). I'm not sure about the merging multiple contact lists issue but what finally solved it for me is going into System Prefs/iCloud and selecting the 'Contacts' checkbox; then suddenly all of my contact names populated.
 
Ashwee said:
High Sierra didn't fix this :(
Click to expand...
Also came here after disappointment that High Sierra didn't fix this...

To clarify the issue:
  • iMessage signed-in properly
  • Contacts syncing properly
Two issues:
  • iMessage will not send from OSX without country code. If I enter 079XXX, it will always sync the contact picture but never the contact name, and will fail to send with a red exclaimation mark
  • iMessage will send from OSX with county code - e.g. +4479XXX, it will always sync the contact picture but not the contact name UNLESS the number is entered with the country code in the contact card
All works fine on iPhone, iPad and - curiously - another machine running OSX...

This. Is. Bloody. Annoying.
[doublepost=1506526843][/doublepost]Just further context some people might find useful:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7891896?start=0&tstart=0

Sadly none of the tips worked for me... my AppleID is set as UK.

I do recall once setting it to US to try and download something so I wonder if that has screwed it up, but trying to force a change from UK to UK didn't work.
 
Last edited:
Yes I can confirm the issue is still present on my iMac in High Sierra. The problem did not occur on my MacBook Pro on Sierra and does not occur in High Sierra.
 
-Ryan- said:
Yes I can confirm the issue is still present on my iMac in High Sierra. The problem did not occur on my MacBook Pro on Sierra and does not occur in High Sierra.
Click to expand...
Same for me still there, got too many contacts to go through and change them manually to +44
 
So I have buggered up my iMessage trying to fix this... (it now won't sign in and I have no idea why).

However, in trying to fix that issue, I do see that in Facetime preferences on OSX there is a 'location' setting. Mine was set to USA...

I can't test this right now, but thought it would be worth someone having a go!...
 
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