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I have an iPod Touch and an iPhone, both on separate Apple ID accounts. What would happen if I added the iPod Touch email to the "receive at" on my iPhone (in addition to the separate email already in place) and confirmed that email address?

I would like to recieve messages for both email accounts on my iphone, but have my itouch only get the messages from one of those accounts.

Would only my iPhone get both account's messages? I want two addresses sending messages to my iPhone and only one to my iPod touch.

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Could you take a stab at editing this title and a bit to clarify things? Each iOS device can have many Apple ID associated - in the store to purchase, in iCloud for sync, several Apple ID in mail and contacts at the same time. What problem are you trying to solve? What exactly does "confirm" that email address mean? – bmike♦ Aug 14 '12 at 23:02
I would like to recieve messages for both email accounts on my iphone, but have my itouch only get the messages from one of those accounts. – SSR Aug 15 '12 at 2:17
I think you also need to clarify whether you're talking about the Mail app, or Messages (which uses email addresses as an identifier). – robmathers Aug 15 '12 at 3:06
I'm talking about imessages. (Each device is currently using imessages with different Apple ID's and different email addresses) Would like to keep it thay way, just INCLUDE the other email address (with the different Apple ID attached to it) to the iphone. So would like the iphone to receive iMessages for BOTH apple ids (from the two seperate email addresses) and the itouch would just continue using the one apple id and email address. – SSR Aug 16 '12 at 7:08

2 Answers

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What you ask is quite doable.

On one device, add the account you wish to get Messages from in the messages settings. It will ask for the user name and password. If that device is a phone, you will have to register that email to be a receiver for iMessage in addition to the cellular phone number. If the device is an iPod touch or iPad you can only receive iMessages to an email address / Apple ID.

Now for the email, go to the Mail, Contacts and Calendars settings and add both accounts.

There you go - email comes in on two accounts and messages come in on one. Repeat these steps as needed on your second, third and other iOS devices. When you have completed the registration, iMessages should propagate to all devices that are enabled for a particular addressee.

The only potential problem would be if you had an iPhone and tried to add an email to be a secondary receive address as well as the phone number and that email was already tied to another different cellular number. In that case, you would have to detach that email from that other number before attaching it to the new number.

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up vote 1 down vote

Based off of my tests, when you choose what email addresses you want to use to receive iMessages, this is set on a per device basis. It's true that each Apple ID will have the same verified email addresses wherever you look. But the checklist in each devices' iMessage settings allows you to choose which email addresses you want to receive messages on that device.

So if you added the one from your iPod Touch as an address to receive at on your iPhone, only one thing would change: you would begin receiving messages sent to that email address on your iPhone.

All this being said, I would recommend you use only one Apple ID for all of your iMessage needs. Changing it around at first will seem a little tricky but should pay off in the end. (Tap the 'Apple ID: ______' button in your iMessage settings and you can change it out without messing up anything else Apple ID-related on your device.)

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SO, are you suggesting I combine my itouch and iphone apple id's (for imessages anyway)?? wouldnt that make it more likely that my iphone messages will go to my itouch? Will it still work if I leave my iphone apple id how it is, and just add the email account i have associated with my itouch onto my iphone?? Also, when I add the itouch email, will i need to enter my actual email password or my Apple ID password for that email address?? – SSR Aug 15 '12 at 1:09
"So if you added the one from your iPod Touch as an address to receive at on your iPhone, only one thing would change: you would begin receiving messages sent to that email address on your iPhone" But will they still also be sent to my itouch?? – SSR Aug 15 '12 at 2:15
In your Settings app when you look under iMessage you'll see that all of the iMessage options can be customized there in a way that won't effect other things such as email. Since you don't want to receive the same messages on both devices, I see that you wouldn't want to use the same Apple ID for both. So it will work just to add the email address to your iPhone's iMessage "receive from" list. It won't make you use that email address' Apple ID's password and you won't need to enter your email account's password. (You will need access to the email account to click the confirm link though.) – Joel Aug 16 '12 at 13:53

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