How To Get Messages To Sync Between Your iPhone And Your Mac


Mac: One of the more interesting features of Mountain Lion is the ability to synchronise messages between iMessage on your iPhone and Messages on your Mac. This means you can start a conversation on your Mac and continue it on your iPhone.

Setting this feature is pretty simple once you’ve enabled the correct options. Here’s what you need to do.

Set Up iMessage On Your iPhone

Firstly, you need to setup iMessages on your iPhone and change your Caller ID.

  1. Open Settings > Messages.
  2. Make sure iMessage is turned on.
  3. Tap “Receive At” and note your Apple ID email.
  4. Make sure your Apple ID and email address listed below are the same.
  5. Tap Caller ID and change it from your phone number to your email address. You will still receive messages at your phone number, but messages will be sent via your email. This change ensures it syncs across devices.

Set Up Messages in Mountain Lion

With iMessages enabled it’s time to get it syncing with Messages on your computer.

  1. Open up the Messages app in your Applications folder.
  2. Click Messages > Preferences.
  3. Click the Account Tab.
  4. Make sure your Apple ID matches the Apple ID email on your iPhone and the “Enable this account” box is checked.

That’s all your need to do. Now when Messages is open on your Mac you’ll automatically receive any iMessages you get from other iPhone users. However, if Messages isn’t opened, the conversations won’t synchronise.

I had some trouble moving a conversation from my iPhone to the Mac seamlessly, but had no problems going the other way. The syncing still seems inconsistent right now, but hopefully it will improve over time.


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