Have you ever wondered if you can send and receive text messages on your Mac? Well, you are not alone, as it seems that a lot of Mac owners are asking the same question. macOS strives to improve every year with the introduction of new features and changes, making your daily tasks better. This year, Apple introduces macOS High Sierra, with some welcome additions to the OS.
In reality, you can send and receive text messages on your Mac without the need for a third-party app. All it takes is using the Messages app on your Mac.
In this tutorial, we will walk you through the steps to send and receive text messages on your Mac. Before we proceed, make sure that your PC is now running a modern version of macOS.
Steps to send and receive text messages on your Mac
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Steps to send text messages on your Mac
Step one: First off, you need to open the Messages app on your Mac. To do this, hit the Messages icon from the Dock
Step two: Once you are in, sign in with your Apple ID (Make sure that you are now using the same Apple ID on both Mac and iPhone)
Step three: Next up, you need to select the new message icon. After that, enter the email address or the phone number for the contact you wish to send text messages to in the To: field. After that, hit Enter to proceed
Step four: If your friend has an iPhone, you will see a blue icon. This means that you now can send text messages via iMessage. Now just simply type your message in the input field and press return to send it.
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Steps to send text messages from your Mac (if the recipient doesn’t have an iPhone)
If your friend is now using an Android phone, you will see a red box when you add their phone number to the To: field. If you try to send that message, you will get a popup saying that “your message could not be sent”. However, with a simple trick, you can easily send a text message from your Mac even if the recipient doesn’t have an iPhone. Here is how.
Step one: First off, you need to open System Preferences on your Mac (select the System Preferences icon in the Dock, or click Apple menu and select System Preferences from the drop-down menu)
Step two: Next up, click on iCloud and sign in with your Apple ID credentials (Make sure that you are now using the same Apple ID on both Mac and iPhone. If you are not, head to Settings on your iPhone and select iCloud)
Step three: Head back to your Mac and open the Messages app. On your iPhone, launch the Settings app from your home screen, select Messages and hit Text Messages Forwarding
Step four: Once you see your Mac from the list, you simply need to turn the slider to green to enable the ability to send and receive text messages on your Mac
Step five: Follow the instructions to complete the task. Once you add a non-iPhone mobile phone number, you will see a green box. You now can send your messages to that contact.
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Got any issues during the process? Let us know in the comments below.
