Text Message Forwarding

[MrMcDee]

Set up my M3PMBP yesterday, replacing my M1MBA. Everything went smooth and working great but ran into an oddity I’m hoping someone can explain.

I set up text message forwarding on my iPhone and made sure messages in iCloud was on on MBP. Tapped the slider to on for that setting in my iPhone and all texts started coming over on MBP.

Later I looked at the setting on my iPhone and realized the slider was replaced with a perpetual ON for my MBP but my iPad mini retains the slider.

Any idea what causes this?

 

[kristof461]

I have exact same issue. Everything was working until yesterday. I didn't received few messages on my Mac despite "text forwarding" was on. So I decided to reset everything. Turned off iMessages on my iPhone and Mac. Restart both devices. Sign in again and it is working now but same as you I don’t have toggle on/off. Only permanent on
I see there is different description under Mac and iPad. Probably it is all about but still...why?

 

[MrMcDee]

Did the same steps as you to try and get the toggle but to no avail. I mean it’s working so I’m not stressed about it, just curious on what triggers it.

 

[kristof461]

Did the same steps as you to try and get the toggle but to no avail. I mean it’s working so I’m not stressed about it, just curious on what triggers it.

Did you have any issues with forwarding in last few days? Maybe Apple has changed something without telling anything. I didn't update my phone since iOS 17.1 but I guess there is possibility to change few things even without updating our phones.

 

[MrMcDee]

No problems with forwarding. iPhone 15PM and M3PMBP are fully updated. All iMessage and SMS texts come through on both devices no problem.

 

[kristof461]

No problems with forwarding. iPhone 15PM and M3PMBP are fully updated. All iMessage and SMS texts come through on both devices no problem.

Got it. So the only difference is that as I mentioned yesterday forwarding didn't work. After all steps I have same thing as you. Even on apple website there is no info about that. Did you post this on apple's community?

 

[MrMcDee]

Yep over the weekend. Even on the MacBook subreddit but no responses.

 

[kristof461]

Yep over the weekend. Even on the MacBook subreddit but no responses.

Interesting. I am sure we are not the only ones. I guess most people don't know about it. I tought about calling Apple but on the other hand...it's still working so there is no need to bother them

 

[MrMcDee]

I’m thinking others are experiencing the same thing, but once they turn it on and it works there’s no reason for them to look back at the setting. I just happened to notice it going through settings.

 

[klepp0906]

exact same issue. happened when I got my new mac studio (and again recently when i replaced my ipad) and I "fixed it" aka at least got consistency amongst devices (all ON as opposed to ON + toggle) by disabling forwarding/icloud message on all devices then re-adding/enabling them 1 by 1.

I think (maybe?) the toggle is for if you are just forwarding, and the perma "on" is indicating that youre syncing/synced bi directionally through icloud. In my case, on the new devices when they transferred data from the old needed to be re-synced with icloud in various areas. wasnt 100% smooth. this was one of em.

 

[The Cockney Rebel]

Can anyone please explain this?

Thanks in advance.

 

[The Cockney Rebel]

iCloud is acting really weird.

On my iPad Pro, it says I have various tabs open on my MBP, but I don't.

I selected "close tab" for all of them, and it went away. However, after that, I now see two instances of my MBA in iCloud Tabs, as well as my MBP.

Also, Keychain was not syncing on my MBA, but all my other devices were in sync (I deleted three login items, but they were still showing on my MBA.)

Today I completely reset my MBA, and set up from fresh. That didn't sort it.

I then reset it again, and used Migration Assistant, to migrate from my MBP. STILL the deleted passwords were showing up on my MBA. I just deleted them manually, and all devices are showing them in recently deleted.

I think something is wrong with iCloud, as there are a lot of issues going on.

Has anyone else experienced this behaviour?

 

[FreakinEurekan]

I'm not seeing this on any of my 4 other devices, all have a toggle switch on my 15 Pro.

But - none use higher than M1 - two M1 minis, an M1 Max MBP, and an iPad mini 6 (A15).

Possibly a new feature with M2/higher, where if it's synced to Messages in iCloud that feature is just "On"? It would make sense, since if you have Messages in iCloud the messages would get there "Anyway" via sync.

 

[uandme72]

The toggle button appears for SMS forwarding (iOS Settings app > Apps > Messages > SMS Forwarding) in iPhone against any device logged in to Apple account in the following conditions:

1.) the iPhone is restored as new and logged on to the iCloud ID, after the other Apple device was logged in to iCloud with same ID. In other words, the iPhone under consideration and its Messages in iCloud are logged on in the last out of all other Apple devices (iPad, macBook, any other iPhone); or

2.) the messages in iCloud is toggled "Off" in the respective other Apple device.

Perhaps the above condition (2) is emanating out of the Apple support article https://support.apple.com/en-in/102545, but the condition at (1) definitely does not seem to have any basis. The behaviour at (1) seems a bug.