Eliminate Green Bubbles When Texting iPhone Users
Are you texting an iPhone user from another iPhone but always see the message in green bubbles? There is an easy fix for that in most cases.
The common thought is this green bubble means the users is on an Android, or non-Apple phone. What the green bubble is indicating is the message was sent via SMS or MMS (cellular network) services. SMS and MMS ONLY work over a cellular network protocol. That means that if you are in a place where you have no cell reception but do have wifi, you will not get these messages until you have a good cellular network connection again.
iMessage sends messages via the digital network which defaults to your wifi connection, if you have one, and the cell phone digital network if you are not on wifi. This automatic switching feature built into iMessage improves reliability as message will get delivered if the user has EITHER wifi OR cellular network connections. If there is no wifi, it tries the digital connection the cell network, and if that fails it will change the message to SMS/MMS and send it over the old-school cell network texting protocol (this can make for green bubbles SOMETIMES, but it is rare and happens only if the cell network is having traffic congestions on the digital protocol).
How To Eliminate Green Bubbles For iPhone User
One of the most common causes of persistent, always-there, green bubbles when texting an iPhone user via their mobile number is that the user changed mobile carriers at some point in the past.
Sometimes you can fix this by going to Settings | Messages | iMessage and toggling it off. Wait a minute (more than 3 seconds) and turn it back on.
However that does NOT always fix the problem. If it does not, click on the “Send & Receive” setting just below the iMessage slider switch. It will usually show at least your iCloud email address. Often it will show your regular email address as well. It should also show your mobile number (if it does not, contact your mobile provider). Make sure all items (or at least the mobile #) is checked.
That should do it!
Green Bubbles In Group Chat
Why do you seen green bubbles in group chat when texting non-iPhone users? Sadly Android (Google) has decided they are NOT going to support the iMessage protocol and thus forego any kind of digital network support (rumor has it “Apple invented it” and thus “Google does not want to give them any kind of kudos for it by adopting this standard”). As such Android messages always send their text messages via SMS if it is one-to-one text chats and MMS if it is group chats or contains any form of media (photos, audio clips, etc.).
You cannot do much about that.
You can however, tweak your iPhone settings to make sure that “send group messages via MMS” is check to keep your mixed iPhone/non-iPhone group chats from “blowing up” into a dozen separate individual text messages.
Good luck out there in the digital and mobile wild west!