A lot of the conversations in the messages have been confusing for me recently for which I can’t find any explanation. Instead of profile pictures and names of people I know, their obscene phone numbers appeared. To make matters worse, the conversation between those for whom I had an iCloud address and a phone number was split into two parts – this happened for the entry of my wife and children.
The problem is that messages stop adding phone numbers without a country code for US numbers when they enter contacts. International dialing format for a US or Canadian number +1 Followed by 10-digit numbers, e.g. +12065551212. United Kingdom Hall +44, And so on. (You can find a complete list online.)
Thus, looking at the message 206-555-1212 And decided differently from it +1-206-555-1212. This is not a new problem. People have been asking about it in forums year after year, often with the same sudden change without any system-related settings. Some commenters think that this could happen if you start syncing with a non-iCloud service like Google: Merged entries may have identical phone numbers but trigger this discrepancy.
The solution seems to be simple: add country codes to phone numbers that show this behavior:
- In Contacts, select the person who appears incorrectly in the messages
- Click Edit.
- Add the country code at the beginning of their phone number.
- Click Done.
You cannot fix this in direct messages by selecting a conversation with the phone number because it is not properly attached to the contact card. Working between messages can create duplicate entries.
As you fix each phone number, you’ll see that messages automatically merge conversations across iCloud and phone number identification.
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