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How can I disable iMessage for a phone number if the iPhone it's attached to has been destroyed? My sister dropped her iPhone in the bath, so she is now using an older non-Apple phone. Whenever I send her a message, it gets sent as an iMessage (and even says "Delivered"), but her device never receives the message.

The only information I could find was this Apple knowledge base article which states the following:

If you plan on transferring your SIM card or phone number from an iPhone to a device that does not support iMessage, turn off iMessage in Settings > Messages first. If you do not, other iOS devices may continue to try to send a message using iMessage first, instead only using SMS or MMS.

However, since this iPhone was destroyed, we can't get into the settings to unregister her phone number.

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Does any of the information here help you? apple.stackexchange.com/questions/27274/… – KatieK Mar 21 '12 at 22:07

4 Answers

up vote 3 down vote

Try to log in to your iPhone with her Apple ID and turn off the settings for iMessage there. Worst case you need to insert her SIM card into your phone and do the changes.

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I don't think it is SIM related. iMessage is via your Apple account, not your phone number. – Jim McKeeth Dec 1 '12 at 4:03
up vote 1 down vote

Go to https://supportprofile.apple.com/MySupportProfile.do, log in with her Apple ID, click on Edit products and click on the "x" to the right of the iPhone. Click Unregister.

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Does this actually cancel notification center messages without having control of the device? That would be cool, but I haven't seen this reported as a way to disable delivery of messages - just to remove it from your list of devices for easy self service when contacting AppleCare. – bmike♦ Dec 29 '12 at 17:21
up vote 0 down vote

In time, that device will expire as a destination for messages but since the phone was physically destroyed by dropping in water, it's highly likely the "delivered" message is due to another Mac or iOS device being registered for iMessage as opposed to the server thinking it had sent a message to a working iPhone (when that iPhone no longer works).

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up vote -2 down vote

Find your sister in the Contacts in your iPhone. Change her current mobile number from "iPhone" to "Mobile". Let me know if this works!

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Her number is already listed as "mobile". – Stephen Jennings Dec 20 '11 at 8:54
4  
This is just a tag, I can put anything I want there, Apple doesn't use this for iMessage. – Loïc Wolff Dec 20 '11 at 10:44

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