Have you ever set up a new Apple device only to discover that for some reason your iMessage conversations have forked off and created multiple threads for the same person? It’s an annoying and incredibly common problem, but Six Colors shows off how to fix it.




Whether you’re setting up a new Apple device or you’re making a change to an existing one, including setting up two-factor authentication, you have the potential to screw this up. Done wrong, you end up with two or more threads for a conversation with the same person. As it turns out, iMessage threading is based on the address the message is sent from. If you have different addresses in your “from” settings, including your phone number or an old email, then there’s a good chance things can get messed up. Thankfully, it’s an easy fix. On your Mac:

Open iMessages. Click Messages > Preferences > Accounts and choose your desired address in the “Start new conversations from” box.


On iOS:

Open Settings > Messages > Send and Receive. Select the same address under “Start new conversations from.”

This will not reconcile the forked conversations that have already happened, but it will at least normalize everything across the Apple ecosystem. If you’re having other issues with iMessage problems, there are plenty of other fixes.

Reconciling forked iMessage conversations | Six Colors