How can I stop my text messages from combining with my Fiance's?

[iMore Question]

My text exchange w fianc? is being mixed, overwritten causing serious misunderstandings

We both have iPhone6 both use ATT ..

 

[SwitchBeach]

Re: My text exchange w fianc? is being mixed, overwritten causing serious misunderstandings

Being "mixed" with what? Where? How?

And what is the question you are asking with your post?

Please provide more details including whether or not you both are using the same Apple ID for iMessage.

 

[Rob Phillips]

Re: My text exchange w fianc? is being mixed, overwritten causing serious misunderstandings

Welcome to iMore! As @SwitchBeach mentioned I can only guess that you're sharing the same Apple ID but your question is rather unclear. Can you post an example of what you're talking about?

 

[Quis89]

Use separate Apple IDs.

 

[dictoresno]

Re: My text exchange w fianc? is being mixed, overwritten causing serious misunderstandings

I'll never understand for the life of me why people share the same Apple ID. It's a huge pain to split it up and try to each have your own once you're established and all and sharing contacts.

As stated above, get your own Apple ID and log into iMessage using it. Then you won't get her messages and she won't get yours.

 

[doogald]

Re: My text exchange w fianc? is being mixed, overwritten causing serious misunderstandings

I'll never understand for the life of me why people share the same Apple ID. It's a huge pain to split it up and try to each have your own once you're established and all and sharing contacts.

My wife and I do have separate Apple IDs, but contacts is one thing we could easily share. It would make it a lot easier when a friend changes information (address, new email, etc.) to update it once rather than have each of us update the info. It'd be nice if you could share, say, a group of contacts, actually. You can share a calendar, for example.

 

[Sherry_B]

Re: My text exchange w fianc? is being mixed, overwritten causing serious misunderstandings

My wife and I do have separate Apple IDs, but contacts is one thing we could easily share. It would make it a lot easier when a friend changes information (address, new email, etc.) to update it once rather than have each of us update the info. It'd be nice if you could share, say, a group of contacts, actually. You can share a calendar, for example.

Create a gmail account and add all of your contacts there. Then each of you add that gmail account to your phone. Any time one of you edits the contacts in that gmail account it should sync with all parties using that gmail account. Of course you would only be using it for sharing contacts, and not using it for emails.

 

[Ledsteplin]

Re: My text exchange w fianc? is being mixed, overwritten causing serious misunderstandings

I would just share the contact card. If one gets updated, then the other deletes the old and adds the new contact card.

 

[doogald]

Re: My text exchange w fianc? is being mixed, overwritten causing serious misunderstandings

Those are not ideal solutions. My wife is not all that technical at all and she doesn't use a gmail account (though my main account is gmail). I tried sharing contact cards to her but she wanted no part of it - it wasn't obvious to her what to do and she never remembers what to do with them when they happen so infrequently. Basically what happens is I go on her computer and edit them after doing it for myself, but I don't always remember to do so.

I also don't feel like creating a fake gmail account just to store contacts, plus (and more importantly) I want the contacts in my gmail account, and I don't think it's possible when I am using gmail on the web to access two sets of gmail contacts, one for my contacts and one for shared contacts.

There are just a core of contacts we'd need to share - family and friends. She doesn't need contact info for my coworkers and I don't need contact info for hers.

So, yeah, it's not just Apple/iOS with this issue - I'd love to see it solved for google accounts and on Android as well.

 

[Ledsteplin]

Re: My text exchange w fianc? is being mixed, overwritten causing serious misunderstandings

Those are not ideal solutions. My wife is not all that technical at all and she doesn't use a gmail account (though my main account is gmail). I tried sharing contact cards to her but she wanted no part of it - it wasn't obvious to her what to do and she never remembers what to do with them when they happen so infrequently. Basically what happens is I go on her computer and edit them after doing it for myself, but I don't always remember to do so.

I also don't feel like creating a fake gmail account just to store contacts, plus (and more importantly) I want the contacts in my gmail account, and I don't think it's possible when I am using gmail on the web to access two sets of gmail contacts, one for my contacts and one for shared contacts.

There are just a core of contacts we'd need to share - family and friends. She doesn't need contact info for my coworkers and I don't need contact info for hers.

So, yeah, it's not just Apple/iOS with this issue - I'd love to see it solved for google accounts and on Android as well.

Why not just share the contact card? It's easy.

 

[doogald]

Re: My text exchange w fianc? is being mixed, overwritten causing serious misunderstandings

As I already said, it's not easy for her, frequently leading to duplicate contacts, one with outdated information. Or, most often, she just never taps the contact, leaving the old info in the address book. So that means I have to remember to do it, and never mind if she's the one who had edited contact info when I didn't get the original call or email with the change.

Calendars can be shared. There should be an analog for address books. I can have multiple calendars in my gmail or iCloud account and can share one, some, or all of them. Photo albums can be shared. Why not allow multiple address books, which can be individually shared?

 

[Sherry_B]

Re: My text exchange w fianc? is being mixed, overwritten causing serious misunderstandings

Those are not ideal solutions. My wife is not all that technical at all and she doesn't use a gmail account (though my main account is gmail).

It's pretty simple... just add the email address and the password and it's there.... no technical know-how needed (if she can't add the email address and password, surely you can do it). You don't need to actively use the email account to send emails, you just need to add the account. Contacts will stay synced to both phones that have the gmail account added, regardless if either of you is using it to send emails. In fact, you can set it not to sync emails and only sync contacts for that specific account.

 

[Ledsteplin]

Re: My text exchange w fianc? is being mixed, overwritten causing serious misunderstandings

It's pretty simple... just add the email address and the password and it's there.... no technical know-how needed (if she can't add the email address and password, surely you can do it). You don't need to actively use the email account to send emails, you just need to add the account. Contacts will stay synced to both phones that have the gmail account added, regardless if either of you is using it to send emails. In fact, you can set it not to sync emails and only sync contacts for that specific account.

View attachment 105416

It's not that simple.

 

[Sherry_B]

Re: My text exchange w fianc? is being mixed, overwritten causing serious misunderstandings

It's not that simple.

Sure it is. I have no issues sharing my gmail contacts on one gmail account between my 6s and my iPod. If I make a change on one, it syncs with the other. They're identical on both devices. Syncing is instant, as soon as you hit the Save button to save the gmail account after adding it.

 

[Ledsteplin]

Re: My text exchange w fianc? is being mixed, overwritten causing serious misunderstandings

Sure it is. I have no issues sharing my gmail contacts on one gmail account between my 6s and my iPod. If I make a change on one, it syncs with the other. They're identical on both devices. Syncing is instant, as soon as you hit the Save button to save the gmail account after adding it.

So all you do not is add the same new Gmail email to both phones and toggle on contacts? How do hundreds of contacts get in to that Gmail? A while back I got curious about Gmail contacts. I had never done anything and had no idea if I had any. Googled it in Safari and found I had some. But it wasn't many. I added a few but not all my contacts. I could see it was more trouble than it was worth.

 

[doogald]

This is still an incomplete solution. While you can delegate a gmail account to another, you cannot delegate contacts from one gmail account to another. If I moved all of our shared contacts to a second gmail account, I would lose access to the contact information within my regular gmail account in the web interface, where I do most of my email work. If I copied them over so they are in both accounts, then I am back to managing two sets of duplicate contacts.

As I said, the real solution would be the ability to share a set of contacts similarly to sharing calendars.

 

[doogald]

Re: My text exchange w fianc? is being mixed, overwritten causing serious misunderstandings

So all you do not is add the same new Gmail email to both phones and toggle on contacts? How do hundreds of contacts get in to that Gmail?

Google Contacts are easy to export and import, using CSV. In this case, if it was a real solution (i.e., Gmail allowed you to access another account's contacts), you could put the contacts in a group, export the group, and then import the .CSV file to the new account.

 

[Ledsteplin]

Google Contacts are easy to export and import, using CSV. In this case, if it was a real solution (i.e., Gmail allowed you to access another account's contacts), you could put the contacts in a group, export the group, and then import the .CSV file to the new account.

And all that can be done on an iPhone? I'm with you until the last part about exporting the group... Export from where to where? Import how to the new account?

 

[doogald]

And all that can be done on an iPhone? I'm with you until the last part about exporting the group... Export from where to where? Import how to the new account?

From a web browser. You'd do it on a computer. You *might* be able to do it on an Android phone, since you can open the desktop site and save files to storage which you can access later from the phone's browser, but I don't think that you could do that on an iOS device.

On a web browser, open Google contacts. Log in to your existing account, if you are not already logged in. If you are using the new version of Google contacts, click "more" on the sidebar, and then "export", where it will tell you that the new version cannot export yet, roll your eyes and click "go to old contacts". If you already started in the old contacts interface, then the next step is the same: click the check mark of all of the contacts you want to export, or, if you want to export all contacts or a group, click the "more" button at the top, and then "export", and follow the prompts.

Log out of the old google account (the circle icon top right has that control), log in to the new one, and then do the same, except choose import rather than export.

 

[Sherry_B]

So all you do not is add the same new Gmail email to both phones and toggle on contacts? How do hundreds of contacts get in to that Gmail? A while back I got curious about Gmail contacts. I had never done anything and had no idea if I had any. Googled it in Safari and found I had some. But it wasn't many. I added a few but not all my contacts. I could see it was more trouble than it was worth.

It's one gmail account, not two. That one single gmail account is added to both devices. It works, I've done it/am doing it.

This is still an incomplete solution. While you can delegate a gmail account to another, you cannot delegate contacts from one gmail account to another. I

You're right, you can't. That's not what I am suggesting.

This is just an example; create a new gmail account shared4us2@gmail.com and import a copy of your contacts to that account. Add shared4us2@gmail.com to your iPhone and set it to only sync contact info (as in the screenshot I posted above). Then install shared4us2@gmail.com on your wife's iPhone and set it the same way, contacts only. There's no emails being sent through shared4us2@gmail.com, but the contacts are synced regardless of how many devices you add that one specific account to.

You can add shared4us2@gmail.com to as many devices as you want of any type that supports gmail, and every single device will have the same contact list for that specific gmail account. I do this all the time. An iPhone can have several gmail accounts added.