How To Sync Messages With iCloud On iOS and MacOS
One of the greatest things about an iPhone backup, and restoring from a backup is that your messaging history is preserved. You do not lose a single message during the transition so long as the backup is recent, and you restore from it right away. Apple now (finally) lets you sync messages with iCloud so that the same messages appear on all your devices without using any extra apps to sync them. This feature is opt-in and firmware specific.
Requirements
You must;
- Sign into iCloud on your iMac or macBook, and your iOS device(s).
- You must have two-factor authentication enabled for your Apple ID.
- You must be running iOS 11.4 and macOSĀ 10.13.5. These are both new versions of their respective OS so you will need to update your device before you proceed.
On iOS
Open the Settings app and tap your name at the very top. Tap iCloud and on the iCloud screen scroll down to the Messages section. Turn on iCloud for Messages and you’re good to go. If you want to sync messages between an iPhone and an iPad, you will need to do this for each device.
On macOS
You need to first update to macOSĀ 10.13.5 but this might take a little time since it hasn’t rolled out to all users worldwide. The wait won’t be for more than a few hours so check regularly if you’re excited about this feature.
Once your Macbook or iMac has updated open the Messages app on your Mac. On the menu bar, go to Messages>Preferences.
Go to the Account tab and select the ‘Enable Messages in iCloud’ option.
It might take a while for older messages to sync between devices but the newer ones will sync right away.
This will only sync messages between devices. You cannot view, send, and receive messages, iMessage or otherwise, from iCloud’s web interface. It has no Messages app and it’s going to stay that way.
The goal of this feature is make it easier to leave a conversation on one device, and pick it up on another. It is counter productive if you have to check a different device which may or may not be available on hand to see what you were talking about before you can reply on a different device. iCloud will sync messages, images, links, audio messages, and videos you’ve sent over a message thread. After enabling this feature, your various conversation threads will sync to all your devices and you will definitely see an increase in the number of threads you have.
