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iPhone no longer forwards text messages to Big Sur M1 Mac

C

chabig

macrumors G4
Original poster
Sep 6, 2002
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I have an iPhone 11 and a MacBook Pro M1. Since getting the new MBP, my iPhone will no longer forward text messages to the Mac. Both are signed into the same iCloud account. Restarting the devices doesn’t work. Cycling iCloud messaging off and on doesn’t work. Cycling iCloud off and on doesn’t work. The text message forwarding option just isn’t there on my iPhone. I've done a thorough web search and I can't figure this out. Any ideas?
 
Last edited:
chabig said:
I have an iPhone 11 and a MacBook Pro M1. Since getting the new MBP, my iPhone will no longer forward text messages to the Mac. Both are signed into the same iCloud account. Restarting the devices doesn’t work. Cycling iCloud messaging off and on doesn’t work. Cycling iCloud off and on doesn’t work. The text message forwarding option just isn’t there on my iPhone. Any ideas?
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I have an iPhone xR and new M1 MBA, and it's working fine. When you say the "option just isn't there" on your phone, I'm not sure what that means. There's clearly a Text Message Forwarding option under Messages.
 
There's clearly a Text Message Forwarding option under Messages.
Click to expand...
There is supposed to be, but I don't have it. It's weird. All of my software is up to date.
IMG_A554765DE726-1.jpeg
 
Is your Apple ID and phone number checked in the list of Send/Receive addresses?
 
Thanks Namara. I did find that one but it doesn't hurt to go over all those things again. I'll try.
 
i have a MPP running Catalina
so if this helps:

on the MBP -> Messages -> Preferences ->iMessage
verify your appleID and password are entered and correct
than press Next
you will see (6) ck boxes, maybe more, i have asserted these
 
I just figured out a clue. When I look at my iCloud settings on the Mac, it shows that my MacBook Pro is signed into my iCloud account. But when I look at my iCloud account on the web, it doesn't show the MacBook Pro as a connected device. If iCloud doesn't show the MBP as signed in, that explains why text message forwarding won't work.
 
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Still no luck. Hopefully the next software update will fix it.
 
chabig said:
Thanks for helping. Yes it does. This is very mysterious. I've tried everything I can think of, so I'm going to Apple for help.
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I'll be interested to hear how it goes. One more thought though. Did we talk about location services? Under Privacy & Security > Location Services > System Services, does Find My Mac appear checked?

1610733141597.jpeg
 
Thanks for that idea Namara. I wouldn't have thought to look there. Unfortunately, it's on. I even cycled it and still no success.
 
I believe it's a Big Sur thing, not M1. I've had similar issues after upgrading from 11.0 to 11.1 on an 2019 MBA, escalating to not being able to pick up a Facetime call (immediately seen as missed in Facetime app on Mac while other devices kept ringing), no audio handoff between iPhone and this particular Mac, being seen as not available in Facetime if all my other devices apart from the culprit MBA were turned off.

I logged in and out Facetime and iCloud a million times, filed a (ignored, as of yet) lengthy feedback to Apple, eventually I wiped the disk clean, reinstalled 11.1 from an external installer (not Internet Restore) and restored my data (not apps nor MacOS) from a backup (not TimeMachine, as it would most probably introduce the same issue again) - it all works now as it should.
 
Restoring everything fresh is a lot of work, but I’m glad to know it’ll probably work. I’ve done it before. I think I will wait until 11.2 to see what happens before I go down that road. Thanks for the contribution.
 
Today, I restored my MacBook Pro from scratch using Apple Configurator 2. It is now factory fresh with a new account created from scratch but of course signed into my iCloud account. I still don't have text message sharing. This has to be a software issue.
 
chabig said:
Hey everyone. I fixed this problem thanks to a YouTube video I found. The solution required not much more than going to my iPhone settings > General > Reset and doing a "Reset All Settings".

Click to expand...
OMG, this actually worked!! Compared to the official apple support site...

And it only took ~2 hrs to re-set every single setting I've customised, and re-add all my cards etc. :D

On the upside, maybe this fixes/reintroduces some other settings that got lost if you've been carrying over your settings for countless years...
 
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