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My brother switched to an Android phone from an iPhone recently.

When I attempt to text him, it still tries to send those messages as iMessages.

Two questions:

  • will he receive these iMessages, and
  • if not, how do I default messages to him as texts instead of iMessages?

Thanks for any help!

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2 Answers 2

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Your brother's Apple ID probably still has his phone number associated with it for iMessage. The smoothest way to deal with this is to have him disassociate his phone number from his Apple ID.

Apple has a self-service web site that explains how to accomplish this:

If that doesn't work, this older KB article has a helpful section "Unlink a phone number".

If he has other Apple devices (Mac or iPad) that are using his Apple ID, your iMessages may be being delivered there. If none of those devices are available when you send him an iMessage, your phone will eventually offer you the opportunity to resend the message as an SMS or MMS.

Unfortunately you can't disable iMessage on a per-contact basis.

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  • This sounds exactly like the issue. I've forwarded it to my brother so he can take action. Thanks for the information and the link! May 14, 2013 at 12:37
  • He could also remove the number from his account by logging in to appleid.apple.com.
    – Flavin
    Dec 25, 2013 at 2:45
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In contacts make sure the label for his number does not say iPhone, if it does change it to mobile. To do this select edit in the upper right corner, tap his number and select mobile. If I understand right this is how the phone knows which to send, iMessage or text. If the label says iPhone I am not sure if it will revert to text or not.

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    I believe the label in Contacts app is entirely for reference for the user of the phone - it doesn't have any impacts beyond that. A good example is someone who had just switched to iPhone (from Android) texted me, and it was an iMessage. May 13, 2013 at 23:51

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