How select iMessage instead of SMS in Messages

kissenger

kissenger

kissenger

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10 Apr 2008
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I'm trying to send someone an iMessage but whenever I type it in in the usual way it automatically sends as a green SMS. How do I select iMessage instead?
 
I was under the impression that iMessages were used exclusively for apple to apple and the phone works out if you are sending it to an apple device to know whether to send an SMS or iMessage?
 
i guess he was stating its more odd than anything. have you actually "connected" your phone to it "handoff" or what ever its called. try turning that off. i can only send imessages off my mac as my phone isn't connected that way.

though bizzarely, with one of my mates it auto sms's a lot of the time. no idea why. might have something to do with them changing settings, imessage not recognising them etc
 
If they have their phone set up to receive iMessage at their telephone number and their email address, then in order to force it to be an iMessage you must direct it to their email address by selecting the chat bubble next to their email address in their contact card.

If you're trying to send an iMessage to their telephone number you can try to get it to work by setting 'Send as SMS' to OFF in Settings -> General -> Messages


This will send the message as an iMessage if they're phone has a data connection. With the above setting set to off if it will try to deliver the iMessage over the net.

If it can't be delivered immediately it shouldn't then try to send it as a text message over the cellular network instead.

I think that's what happens for existing conversation. For new conversations I'm thinking it must send as a text though. It's a funny one when using their actual phone number to communicate via iMessage. Easiest way to guarantee iMessage only is to use the email address linked with their iMessage account.

This can get confusing though as you may end up with two chat conversations for the same contact in your Messages list. To get around that, with certain people I sometimes create an iMessage only contact card for that person with only their email address so it's obvious what conversation I'm viewing and using.
 
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I deal with a lot of clients via text and I find that setting incredibly frustrating.

When a new customer has an email address selected under 'Start new conversations from:' it means I can't call them back immediately without a bit of texting back and forth as I can only see their email address.

I think you can still force iMessage people if you start a conversation thread with the iMessage email address on their contact card without forcing all of your new conversations to everyone you interact with to originate from your email instead of your phone number.
 
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On the subject, is there a way to get the phone to prompt you if iMessage is unavailable, if it should send an SMS/MMS instead? Last time round I had an iPhone I tried to iMessage someone whilst in Bahrain and the phone decided to drop off the wifi and send an MMS instead. I soon switched to whatsapp!
 
settings -> messages -> Send as SMS (turn this off).

That means that when iMessage is available but fails, it will refuse to send as SMS/MMS and instead just show as 'failed' allowing you to hold-press on the message and select "send as SMS" manually.

It still allows you to send SMS messages to non apple contacts as normal :)
 
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