Iphone 4s sending texts as emails

[Anonymous]

Hi - first time here and I hopes somebody can help. 

I have an Iphone 4s.  Up until recently it worked fine but recently if I send somebody a text message most people receive it as an email sent from my phone number.
 
It has my phone number as the sender and the receiver gets an email from me saying something like "you have received a picture message" from and my phone number.
 
Can anybody advsise what I need to do to fix ths please.
 
I have researched this on the net but nothing I've done so far seems to make it work.
 
Thanks for your help

[Anonymous]

Firstly, in the Send and Receive screen tap on the Use your Apple ID, and sign in using your iCloud account. You will then  see your tel num and your Apple ID email address(es) ticked and tap next.

Then go back out to the top level Message settings screen, and then back in to Send and Receive, and you will have your tel num and iCloud email address(es) in the reached at box, as well as a Start New conversations box below. Make sure you tel num is ticked in the Start new conversation box.

Now on your iPad, go into Settings and Messages and turn on iMessage. If it doesn't ask you to sign in with your iCloud account, then go into Send and Receive and sign in with your iCloud account. You should then get the 2 boxes for receive iMessage at and start new conversations with your tel num and iCloud email address(es) the same as on your iPhone. There should be no other email address in there.

Try that out, and let me know how you get on.

[Anonymous]

Thank you again for your time...

I will try as you say when I get home.. in the meantime my colleagues at work have been fidding and I've realised that my settings are different from their iphones. 

I have many contacts with both email addresses and mobile numbers.

When I compose a message and click the + sign to send a message it sometimes brings up the contact themsleves and asks me to click on the appropriate number to send it to and the text goes ok (which is fine) but a lot of the time it doesn’t give me this option which is where I think the problem is. 

I start to compose a message and click on the + sign and choose my contact and the name goes straight into the "to" box without me choosing which number I want to send it to - hence it goes to their email address instead of their mobile number and they receive the message below.  It’s as if something in my phone is defaulting to use their email addresses instead of phone numbers - but I don’t know how/where to change it!   

And its impossible to send a message to more than one person when the above is happening.

"Hello,  Here's a picture message you've been sent from 00000000000

You can send a message back from your mobile phone. But don't reply to this email"

Hope that helps - thanks again....

[Anonymous]

It sounds like the contacts themselves have not been setup correctly, as it does work some of the times by giving you the choice of what tel num or email address to use.

Try editing 1 of the problem contacts and make sure tel numbers and email address are in the right field. Then try and send them a message.

Anyway, what I described before will help setup iMessage on both your iPhone and iPad and will keep the iMessage history in sync on both devices.

[Anonymous]

Hi buffbuff - thanks for the advice. 

I have tried editing a few contacs - sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't but I dont relish the thought of doing this for 300+ contacts! 

When I say it works I mean that when I go to text that person the "preview" screen comes up and asks me where I want to send the message to - but again its random if it works or not.

Immesage is now synched on both devices - thanks.

I did ring 02 too and the chap I spoke to said he had had this problem too - told me to back up and restore which I did - but yep youve guessed it - it didnt work!

[Anonymous]

You said in your previous post that some of your colleagues iPhones had different settings to you. What settings were different ?

Are your contacts saved in your iCloud account ? Do you use iCloud to store all your data like Calendars, Reminders and Notes ?

If so, then you could reset your iPhone and try setting it up as a new iPhone without using your backup. You will lose your SMS/MMS/iMessage history, saved Wifi networks and will have to install your apps and music again, but your Contacts, Calendars, reminders and Notes data will be restored when you log in to your iCloud account.

I would recommend trying this, but you would have to download any photos in your camera roll first so as not to lose them as well.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Thanks very much to all of you for trying to solve my problem. 

I had to take my phone into and an Apple Store today and 2 hrs later(!) its sorted.  The chap (who had worked there for 3 years) had never seen the issue.  6 resets later(!) and its sorted.

He wasnt exactly sure what caused the problem but it was somehow linked to my hotmail contacts.

Anyway as I said thanks for your help.