How can I still text in my former old iPhone 6+ (iOS v12.5.7) with its inactive VZW SIM card since 12 mini (iOS v17.7.1) is currently the active iPhone? I’d like to still send SMSes and iMessages in the former iPhone 6+ like my 12 mini. I checked iPhone 6+'s Messages settings and I see its “Send & Receive” is using my same Apple ID e-mail address. So, it should be able to send and receive texts?
Thank you for reading and hopefully answering soon. :)
If the phone is still receiving iMessages, in order to send and receive text messages on it you need to go into Settings / Messages (or Settings / Apps / Messages) / Text Message Forwarding on your 12 mini and make sure that the 6s is turned on.
And, of course, you’ll need to have your iPhone 6+ connected to the Internet, presumably by Wi-Fi.
Thanks. I noticed iMessages only go on the same iPhone. How can I make them show up on both iPhones?
You can try something similar to the setup between my iPhone and Mac:
First, both devices need to be logged into the same Apple ID and have access to the Internet. (Although maybe only one needs Internet access if both have Bluetooth on?)
On the phone (or both of your phones):
That’s in iOS 18.1. In earlier versions of iOS, there’s no “Apps”, so it’s just “System Settings >> Messages”.
On the Mac:
That’s on macOS Sonoma 14.7.1 and with Messages 14.0 (1262.700.71.1.2.
It is worth noting where the message is being sent to. If it is sent to an AppleID, it will show up in potentially different places that a message sent to a phone number. For example, if I have an old iPhone that is not on a cellular contract (may not even have a SIM), I can still easily get AppleID addressed messages as long as I am on WiFi. However that phone will not get messages sent to the phone number of my active iPhone.
First on the 6+ you should check Settings / Messages and see if iMessage is turned on. If it is not, the phone needs. to be activated for iMessage, which is hard to do on an iPhone without an active SIM. You can do it using iTunes (or the Finder on Catalina or later), but when I’ve done it in the past, it took me multiple tries. See If you can't activate your iPhone or iPad (Wi-Fi + Cellular) - Apple Support
If your 6+ has iMessage activated, then Settings / Apple ID / iCloud and turn on Message in iCloud on all of your devices to sync messages between them.
Ahh, I need to enable iCloud. Thanks. However, new issues came up:
I don’t see any incoming iMessages in 6+, but iPhone 12 mini does. Strange that iPhone 6+‘s iOS v12.5.7’s settings’ Messages show “Waiting for activation…” with enabled iMessage option. Toggling off and on shows “iMessage Activation – An error occurred during activation. Try again. OK”. I retried several times and even rebooting this old iPhone. Same results! :(
iPhone 12 mini’s iOS v17.7.1’s iCloud says I have 600 messages (1.2 MB) and just synced. I don’t see them though in both iPhones. I tried http://icloud.com web site, but didn’t see Messages app. From what I read online, it doesn’t let users access Messages on the web site.
What’s up? I also don’t have macOS right now too.
No one knows? :(
Yes, as I said, it is difficult to activate iMessage with an iPhone that has no SIM. Apple activates using your phone number on an iPhone. It’s annoying to me - I’d like to use an old iPhone as the equivalent of an iPod touch.
Anyway, this may help: How to Use iMessage on iPhone and iPad Without a SIM and Phone Number
Basically Settings / Messages (or Settings / Apps / Messages on iOS 18), tap “Sed & Receive”, and make sure that your Apple Account email address is checked. See if that works.
I have a SIM card in it. It just doesn’t have an active service. So it sounds like it needs an active service too. Yes, it is using my Apple ID email address.
I noticed my king’s iPhone 11 Pro Max, 2 Intel MacBook Pros, and iPad air can sync all messages together!
I’m not sure how this fits, but I have an old iPhone 5s without a SIM that I use as an iPod Touch. I keep it in Airplane Mode most of the time, but if I power it off for an extended period, it will ask to be reactivated. Simply connecting to the Internet via wi-fi works. To be fair, I haven’t tried to use Messages on it once I factory reset it for use without the SIM.
One word of warning about using an old iPhone as an iPad Touch–with a phone that’s stuck on an older operating system, you may face trouble when you try to do a restore-from-backup on a newer device that’s logged in to the same Apple ID.
My kid has an iPad, and one of our very old iPhones is in his room to play music quietly at night. His iPad broke under warranty and we did a swap at the Apple Store. But when we tried to restore it from the iCloud backup, it demanded the passcode from the old iPhone – but didn’t actually accept it when we entered it correctly. My best guess is that the iPhone is stuck back at a version of iOS that doesn’t know how to properly respond to the 2FA authentication request from the server, but the server doesn’t know that and won’t let the backup proceed.
The solution was to (a) log out of his iCloud account on the iPhone and (b) go into his iCloud account and make sure the iPhone was completely removed. Once that was done, we were able to restore from the backup without incident. But without having physical access to the iPhone we would not have been able to do the restore. (So if I’d been trying to do the restore in the Apple Store when I picked up the replacement, it would have failed.)
(Similarly, I once learned never to do a major OS update to my iPad and iPhone at the same time–if an update requires logging back in to iCloud, you’ll need one of your devices working normally in order to log in to the other one.)
Dave
Weird. My old iPhone 6+ got green bubble texts (SMSes), but how?
Did you do this?
In my 12 mini’s iOS v17.7.1’s Messages’ settings, I don’t see a "Text Message Forwarding option. I do see it in my 6+'s iOS v12.5.7’s Messages settings which I just enabled. That didn’t make any differences too.
Did you scroll down in Settings/Messages? Yhe forwarding is a bit down toward bottom…below sharing, contact photos.
Yep. https://matrix.zimage.com/_matrix/media/v3/download/ross154.net/LDaDawNzGPuAYtOsOZDaelDf/RPReplay_Final1731791227.mov for my screen recording from my iPhone 12 mini’s iOS v17.7.1. What am I missing to get this option? :(
Do you have any other Apple device (iPad, laptop? )On my iPad, I first went to Settings/Messages and made sure that send/receive were turned on only for my iphone number. And that wifi is on. Maybe then restart your old and new iphones. Then go to mini and back to Settings/messages. On my iphone mini (identical to yours) - the text messaging forwarding setting has > that then shows any devices I have set up to receive, and I toggle them on and off as needed.
Your video failed to load.
I have a very old 2012 MBP with its updated macOS Mojave v10.14.6 which I rarely use and doesn’t have Messages connected (don’t want them there). I rebooted both iPhones and didn’t see any differences. I wonder if it is a carrier related. iPhone 12 mini is on Verizon Wireless. 6+ used to have it too but was replaced by 12 mini a few years ago with its brand new SIM card.
Odd/Strange that my uploaded https://matrix.zimage.com/_matrix/media/v3/download/ross154.net/LDaDawNzGPuAYtOsOZDaelDf/RPReplay_Final1731791227.mov video file didn’t work for you. It played in my SeaMonkey and Firefox web browsers.Edge wanted to download this MOV video file, but it played in external Media Player Classic Home Cinema in my updated 64-bit W10 Pro PC. All are on the latest stable versions.