Reset Messages in iCloud. Go to Settings Your Name iCloud and switch 'Messages' off, wait a few seconds, then switch it back on. You can try this on just your iPhone, just your iPad, or both devices. If your messages still aren't syncing, continue to the next step. IMessages automatically marked as read Whenever a single message or conversation is selected, by default it will automatically and immediately be marked as read. Under Preferences or Options Display Advanced you can change this behavior to: Not immediately mark messages as read. Why do my iMessages go straight to read? With the feature turned on, your trusted personal assistant will read an incoming message aloud, be it an iMessage or a text originating from a third-party messaging app, as long as it integrates with the personal assistant using Apple’s SiriKit APIs. Siri announces the sender before reading aloud the contents of their message into your ear. Check if iMessage is down. The first possibility is that the server that iMessage is run from is down.
- How To Backup Imessage Messages
- Imessage Automatically Reading Messages Windows 10
- Why Are My Imessages Reading Themselves
iMessage is one of my favorite things about having an iPhone and a Mac. It’s also one of my least favorite things.
I love being able to send messages from my computer, and the integration between the two devices is seamless. What frustrates me is the inability to efficiently search through old messages. iOS 13 helped with this quite a lot (while still leaving something to be desired), but searching on your computer is basically worthless.
Fortunately, there is a relatively easy fix for this. If you use iMessage on your Mac, you can access the SQLite database where all of your messages are stored. With a little setup, you can use SQL’s raw power to look through your old messages.
1. Initial Setup
There aren’t any prerequisites to getting started (other than a Mac with iMessage). However, your mileage may vary depending on whether you are using a SQL client (I use TablePlus) or sqlite3 on the command line. The setup for both is similar.
The database is located at
~/Library/Messages/chat.db
. If you open a terminal and run ls ~/Library/Messages/chat.db
, you’ll get a message like: ls: Messages: Operation not permitted
. Similarly, if you try and open the database in a SQL client, you’ll likely see an error. We need to grant access first. How to clone your Mac so you can use it as a backup | iMore.Black obsidian crystals for sale. Obsidian (Black) Obsidian is a stone formed by lava that didn’t have enough time to cool into glass. This volcanic glass aids in protection, grounding, and spiritual communication. Known as a “psychic vacuum cleaner”, Black Obsidian gets rid of all the junk and cleanses all.
I’m doing this on macOS Catalina, which has added some additional security features (i.e., restrictions). Even so, it’s actually quite easy to get access to the database, as long as you don’t mind granting full disk access to some applications. Let’s get that out of the way right away.
Open System Preferences, find the “Security & Privacy” pane, click on the “Privacy” tab, and find the “Full Disk Access” item. Make sure your SQL client and/or terminal are selected.
That should be it! You’ll need to restart any applications that were open while you granted them access. Otherwise, you should be able to access the message database:
- In a terminal, run
sqlite3 ~/Library/Messages/chat.db
- In a SQL client, connect to the database at
~/Library/Messages/chat.db
. If you’re having trouble navigating to it, you can press CMD+SHIFT+G in a finder window and type that in the dropdown.
2. Exploring the Tables
When you open the database, you should see about fifteen tables.
How To Backup Imessage Messages
A few notable tables:
- attachment – metadata and storage location
- chat – a collection of your messages (both direct and group)
- handle – metadata about chats
- message – all messages sent and received
There are also join tables, which show the relationships between tables (handles to chats, chats to messages, messages to attachments, etc.). With these, we can build some pretty cool queries.
3. Queries
To see all of your messages with a nicely formatted date:
To find a message that matches some text:
To see the total count of messages across all of your chats:
To see some interesting information about messages between you and another person:
Imessage Automatically Reading Messages Windows 10
These are just a few examples of what you can do when you dig into the data behind your messages.
Why Are My Imessages Reading Themselves
Accessing the chat database can, of course, be useful for finding old messages. But more than that, it’s fun to explore and write some interesting queries. Let me know in the comments if you’ve written anything exciting for this database!