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How to Get Messages to Properly Sync with Your iPhone


One of the more interesting features of OS X Mountain Lion is the ability to synchronize 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.

Set up for this feature is pretty simple. First, you need to enable a few things on both your iPhone and your Mac. Here's what you need to do.

Set Up iMessage on Your iPhone

First off, 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 sending out will be from your email. This makes it so it syncs across devices).

That's it for your iPhone (iPod Touch or iPad). Now it's time to get it working with Messages on your Mac.

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 it, you're done. 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 synchronize. I also had trouble moving a conversation from my iPhone to the Mac seamlessly, but had no problems going the other way. The Messages and iMessage syncing still seems inconsistant, but hopefully it will smooth out over time.