Receive texts to a phone number on all your Apple devices

The oldest parts of the cell phone system are figuratively held together with chicken wire and chewing gum, and wireless carriers have little motivation to change it because it works and makes them billions and billions of dollars. Apple created iMessage for an enhanced (and secure) messaging ecosystem and combined it on the iPhone with “traditional” SMS (text) and MMS (multimedia) mobile messaging systems.

You can send and receive mobile text messages and iMessages on your iPhone. Apple extended the iPhone’s phone networking capabilities to your other iCloud-linked devices many years ago to provide the same access to the non-Apple world of texting.

To make sure everything works as you want, you may need to check and change settings in multiple places.

First on your iPhone in Settings † Messages†

• iMessage must be enabled.
• Tap Send & Receive to choose the phone number and iCloud associated addresses where you can receive messages on this iPhone.
• Also check under Send & Receive Under Start new conversations from† You may want to dial the iPhone number rather than an email address to ensure people outside of Apple’s iMessage ecosystem receive your messages correctly.
• In Forward SMS turn on all your devices that can send and receive mobile text messages.

On your other devices, make sure the iPhone’s phone number is selected as a valid way to receive messages:

• In iOS/iPadOS, go to Settings † Messages † Send & Receive and dial the iPhone number under You can receive and reply to iMessages from† (Even though it says iMessage, it seems to apply to text messages.)
• In macOS, open Messages and choose Messaging > Preferences > iMessage† In Settings, check the box next to the iPhone number. (Note that Apple says here “You can be reached for messages on” not just iMessages.)

This Mac 911 article answers a question from Macworld reader Olive.

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