I thought text messages, whether SMS or iMessage, were independent on each person's phone, unlike "auto-deleting" messengers like telegram and signal. I was recently having some trouble receiving and syncing text messages with one of my friends so I erased our message thread, erased and re-added their contact info, and also turned off imessage and back on. Obviously all their messages on my phone are now gone, but this affected their iPhone as well. All messenger messages between us after 2020 have been deleted on their phone as well. Why would this happen? They have not made any changes, only me.
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Why would changes I make on my iPhone erase messages on a friend's phone?
- Thread starter Schmactor
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Your phone cannot make changes on his phone. Something else - definitely on his end - is causing the deletion.
It likely started a new separated thread on your friend's iPhone. They should be able to scroll through their Messages list and find the prior thread. Not sure if there's a way to merge.
This is my thought as well.
Your settings probably got changed when you turned iMessage off and on. Go to Settings -> Messages -> Send & Receive, and make sure what you have selected is what you want. (To avoid issues like this, I leave only my phone number checked and all my email addresses unchecked.) It's likely your friend's original thread was sent using your phone number, and your new thread was sent from your email address or vice versa. That will make it appear as being from two different contacts for your friend, and therefore two different threads. Unfortunately, there is no way to merge them.
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