Now that iOS 8.1 is out, with iOS 8.1 running on your iPhone, you can set up SMS Relay. This is one of the features of Continuity, which further integrates and connects your Mac and iOS devices, running Yosemite and iOS 8.1. Continuity also includes Handoff, iPhone Cellular Calls, Instant Hotspot, and AirDrop.
With iMessage, when you are messaging people using Apple devices they appear in blue bubbles. Those messages sync onto all of your Apple devices so that way you can text someone from your Mac, iPad or iPod Touch. Previously, the people you texted in green bubbles were not using iMessage because they were not on Apple devices. Those conversations were not syncing over to your Mac, iPad or iPod Touch, which forced you to respond back to them only on your iPhone. Now with SMS Relay, your non-Apple using friends’ messages will sync to your Mac, iPad or iPod Touch while all connected to the same Wi-Fi Network, so you can respond from whichever device you prefer.
Before even setting up SMS Relay, you do need to be logged into the same iCloud account on all of your devices for Messages. If the whole family is using the same iCloud account it is a good idea to change the iCloud account to avoid confusion. On your iOS device you are going to open up Settings and tap on Messages. Then tap on Send & Receive to make sure you are signed in with your Apple ID. On your Mac you are going to open up Messages, press on the word Messages in the upper left hand corner and select Preferences. Then you are going to make sure you are signed into your account.
By default, SMS Relay is turned off. To enable it, you need to use your iPhone that has iOS 8.1 installed on it. Open up Settings and then scroll down until you see Messages and tap on it.
Then you are going to tap on Text Message Forwarding. Doing so shows you a list of your devices that are activated and signed into iMessage with the same iCloud account. You are able to decide which devices will receive text message forwarding, which allows for you to have control as to which devices will receive your SMS messages.
When you turn on text message forwarding, a pop-up displays on the device with a confirmation code. On the iPhone you need to enter the confirmation code in order to confirm that you want that device to receive your text messages, as well as confirming you own and use that device.
Now that you entered in the codes to activate SMS Relay, you will now receive SMS messages on your Mac, iPad and iPod Touch.
With SMS Relay, it can be a little bit confusing if you have friends that are cross platformed that use an iPad, iPod Touch or a Mac and do not have an iPhone. For example, my parents have Android phones and iPads so we use both SMS and iMessage. Before SMS Relay, there would be two different conversations listed indicating which device they were on. Unfortunately this is still the case when using iOS devices but on the Mac it is now one smooth conversation.
When texting on the Mac, the Messages app by default sends the message out through iMessage as opposed to SMS. You have to manually select the cell phone number to send it out as an SMS. To do so you would click on the person’s name and select their cell phone number.
That is how you set up and use SMS Relay. Let us know if you find SMS Relay to be a benefit to your workflow.
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Note in order for any of this to work you have to associate an email with iMessage in addition to the phone number. It may be a bug but if you don’t do this you will never get the code window to pop up in the Mac.
I have exactly that problem, could you please explain how to set up iMessage, how to associate the phone number, it’s not quite clear to me and I have tried quite a few steps already.
I’ve also been trying to pair my iPhone 6 OS 8.1 with my 2014 MBP (OS 10.10 ) in the Bluetooth settings which also doesn’t work.
Thank you!
Thank you! This has been an ongoing problem no one has addressed in any article. Finally!
To clarify on this a little more – because I was struggling with the code not popping up on my mac, despite being logged into the same account on both devices…
Under Settings > Messages > Send & Receive, You must also select your e-mail along with the phone number. The second picture provided with the article shows what it should like like once you have selected the e-mail as well as the phone number. New conversations will still be started with your phone number (also an option at the bottom of the same menu). If you don’t have both your EMAIL AND PHONE NUMBER selected, it won’t sync.
Lastly, I had to open up Messages on the macbook and this is when the confirmation number popped up (after attempting to turn on SMS relay on your phone, where you are prompted to enter the sync code).
Cheers!
That’s right, but once you’ve associated that email address on your phone you can disable it again if you’d like and text forwarding will still function.
Can’t get the pop-up messages on my mac and iPad have tried all the suggestions here.
Nice step-by-step, Sarah, as always!
Interesting, my iPad mini isn’t showing up
But they still didn’t make the most important change to messages. The ability to get notified immediately that the recipient does not currently have a data connection and offer instead to send a plain old SMS – or do so automatically honoring the setting in prefs.
Can’ even begin to tell you how many time friends and I don’t receive each others messages until hours after they’re sent, may times making them completely useless.
Apple already has this notification. It is the “delivered” under your text. Once the blue bar finishes at the top of your phone indicating the iMessage has been sent from your phone, you can see if it has been delivered to your friends phone ie. They have data on and received it. If after 30 seconds or so, it hasn’t been “delivered” just long press on the text and click “send as text message”.
Now they will get it even if they don’t have data turned on.
Text Message Forwarding isn’t even an option for me, and I did update to 8.1
Huh
When I go to messages there isn’t a “Text Message Forwarding.”
Same for me. I have the iPhone 6 plus and 8.1 and the text massage forwarding not even in my settings
Message*
Log out of iCloud in Messages on iOS and OS X. Then log back in. It should work for you.
How does one sign out of messages on iOS?
you need to update your phone! i had the same issue
how do you remove devices from list
if you reinstall yosemite you have to setup again and still shows previous
The downside? If I delete SMS messages from (pick your device/desktop) it doesn’t sync to the other devices and automatically delete them as well. Maybe the next version.
Quite right Don…Partial Continuity. I get Text messages from my FD and to delete them in the iPhone is a swipe-tap and in Messages it is a click-move-click.
I’m loving this feature
I turned this on and it works great. I ended up turning it off though, because I don’t want SMS messages that are part of two-factor authentication going to multiple devices. Almost everyone I know uses iMessage anyway, so it wasn’t a big deal.
Thanks!
You should edit the tutorial to include troubleshooting, i.e.: I had to log out of iCloud in Messages on iOS and OS X at the same time and then log back in before I could get the pop-up to appear on my mac.
Thx mate, this solved my problem 👍
I think it’s crap that android users can’t do this! I understand why but it’s dumb lol.
If this doesn’t work on your MacBook, dig deeper. I have a mid-2011 MacBook Air and I had to do some digging to find a patch to enable this; Handoff isn’t meant for 2011 and earlier computers, for whatever reason.
How exactly do you”dig deeper”? My iMac dates from late 2009, so is ancient as far as iOS 8 is concerned (it does, however, run Yosemite).
Doesn’t work for me on late 2012 iMac with a fresh install of Yosemite. Phone calls and hand-off work, receiving and sending texts on iMac don’t. I don’t even get the code to enter. Even after associating an email and phone number
I wish this turned itself off when I left the network, when I go home for the day, my part timer gets all of my texts lol
Hmmm…
This could only be happening if you’re allowing your part timer to use your mac in YOUR user account while logged into YOUR iCloud. If for some reason your part timer needs access to your iCloud, then I’d suggest you’ve got bigger security issues than him/her seeing your text messages. Even if this feature turned itself off when you leave the network as you’ve suggested, he/she would still get all your iMessages.
I’d suggest this: If you don’t want your part timer having access to all your stuff, including your text messages and everything else in your iCloud, you should set up your part timer with his/her own user account (and his/her own iCloud account) on the Mac. Really, that’s the Apple version of this (and everything else that’s yours) turning itself off when you leave.
Hope that helps.
Thank you for this! I got the popup on my iMac to send the code from my phone to enable, but I accidentally canceled and wasn’t able to figure out how to get it to pop up again!
Also though, I want to comment that you do NOT need your devices to be on the same wifi network to make this work. I tested by turning off both wifi and bluetooth on my phone, and tried to send a text from my iMac and it went through and showed up on my iPhone like sent messages do through iMessages.
I love you. (and thanks!!)
Can you iMessage me or SMS me to remind me to re-read this tomorrow when I’m sober?
Would be great, but if I try to activate on my phone, the messages app on my Macbook crashes… Every single time, also after a reboot. Anyone else having this problem of messages crashing upon token request from iPhone?
If you’re still on the beta version, you should try updating to the release version, see http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=20178846&postcount=6
Couldn’t find an option to forward message in iOS8.1, is there any solution?
I seem to have somehow deleted the Messages app from my Mac and can’t figure out how to get it back. It’s not in the App Store any more. Any ideas for this?
Never mind. I always find thing right after I ask someone else where they are. Sigh.
So I can’t find mine either…where did you get it back?
Can anyone confirm if a cellular iPad is needed for SMS Relay to work. Mine is Wi-Fi only, and no confirmation code popup appears.
TJ Mongero said, “If you don’t have both your EMAIL AND PHONE NUMBER selected, it won’t sync.” That’s right. Good point. However, the problem (at least in my case) was that the PHONE NUMBER DID NOT SHOW UP on the list of “Addresses” or the list under “Start New Conversations From” on the “Send & Receive” screen of my iPhone. In other words, when I hit “Send & Receive” according to the instructions, there were only e-mail addresses and no phone number, which the author of the post somewhat confusingly designates by “08”. Hence, despite that I followed all the instructions here and on the Apple site (http://www.apple.com/ios/messages/), I did not get the code on my Mac or my iPad. What fixed it in my case was turning the iPhone off (I also turned off the Mac and the iPad, just in case) and then turning it back on. After that, the phone number appeared both under “Addresses” (in gray) and under “Start New Conversations From” (in black). Then, I checked the phone number under “Start New Conversations From” on the “Send and Receive” screen of the iPhone and then I put the check back under the e-mail address. Then I saw pop-ups (without even requesting the codes) on my Mac and my iPad, asking for approval to use that phone number for messaging. I consented by hitting “Agree”. Then I requested the codes by clicking on “Text Message Forwarding” on the “Messages” screen of the iPhone (per instructions here) and, voila, the codes came on both the Mac and the iPad. Good luck everybody! I hope it helps.
I DO NOT want mightiest messages popping up on my computer screen. I have not enables the forwarding and my phone shows it as being off. However when I get a text message it pops up. How can I stop this since I cannot delete this app from the iMac? or log out?
my text messages*
This is so helpful! My iMessages and SMS are syncing between my Mac, iPhone and iPad BUT what is not happening is when I delete a message/thread/conversation on any one of my devices, it is not deleting on all! A bit frustrating as I would think when any new messages or any new messages to an existing thread are updated, when I delete a conversation that would be too…but it is not! Again, when I delete a conversation on any of my devices, it is not deleted on all. please help!
Solved my problem. Thank you!
I logged out of IMessage under the “Message” settings on my phone, then logged back in. That helped me. Most advice told me to log out of icloud then back in. That didn’t work for me.
For some reason I am not getting an authorization code to enter on my iPad mini.
Any ideas?
Perfect. Thank u!
Is there any way to setup the delete of sms messages on multiple devices, if the message is deleted on one device? It’s extremely annoying right now because I have to personally delete the message from my iPhone, iPad, iPod, two macs and in future apple watch as well!!
Thank you!
I have a question regarding sending the message out as an SMS. What if my friend has iMessage but at the time of our conversation, he is out of the house and is unable to get a wifi connection. How do I send the iMessage via SMS?
After several websites and so many times turning my phone on and off and following the most insane methods described by people i contacted Apple directly and got the following solution.
*First thing first you have to make sure that you have airtime available on the phone number you are using with your iPhone, free minutes doesn’t work as your subscriber will block these requests if there is not enough funds available.
*Also ensure that you have your iCloud Email Account Logged in on all your devices (Same email on all devices)
Follow the steps below and if it doesn’t work for you let me know.
1. Ensure that you have entered your correct phone number under the settings tab “Phone”
* Settings > Phone > My Number (Ensure your cellphone number is entered with your country code i.e. +27 (72) ### ####) leave out the zero inform of your number when entering your phone number and the system will automatically add the brackets)
2. Switch the iMessage setting off and on again
* Settings > Messages > iMessage (Wait a minute for the settings to be activated and be active)
3. You will notice now that the iMessage will be active active and right below the iMessage tab it will now show “Text Message Forwarding 2 Devi…. >”
4. Make sure that on the Message App under the “Send & Receive” Option on all your devices where it says “YOU CAN BE REACHED BY IMESSAGE AT” that both your Cell Number and Email Address has a tick next to it, if it doesn’t go ahead and tick both you will notice on you iPhone the Cell Number is automatically ticked but on your other devices it has to be done manually.
5. Go back to the iPhone Message App and under the “Text Message Forwarding Option” you will now see all the devices that can be activated slide the bar and a code will appear on the specific device.
Do note that on the iPad the code will appear as a normal popup on the screen but on the MacBook Pro and iMac you first have to open the Message App as the code will appear almost within the app also as a popup.
Cheers :*)
1. Will I receive an email that my accounts are linked or the only notification will be the pop-up which tells me to insert the code?
2. If an email is sent after linking the accounts, what if I have 3 emails associated with my Apple ID? (From previous that I never cleaned up). Will I get an email on all three?
Thanks!
THANK-YOU1
Thank you so much! I’ve been trying to get this working again for months and all other tutorials I followed didn’t work. You’re too awesome, thanks!