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Apple creates technology for consumers that includes phones, tablets, accessories, and even proprietary applications that only run on the company’s own operating systems. One such program is iMessage, and it is the primary way that many Apple device users will send data to each other.
They can do this from one individual to another, or they can create group chats to reach a wider audience. If you have an Apple device, you can use iMessage to send basic texts, images, videos, and even whole documents to others. The app supports full encryption at either end of the communication, and extensions from third-party developers can further enhance the program’s usefulness.
In general, iMessage functions like most other texting apps you will find on the market. However, there are times when you might send a message in the program and wait for a “delivered” status that seems to take forever to arrive. Some users might question whether their iMessage app is functioning properly when things like this happen. That is a topic that we will cover in today’s article.
Along the way, we can discuss the likelihood of any message on the program pushing through eventually, whether Apple might block you from sending messages at all for any reason, why the service might seem to operate slowly, and the possibility of getting a false confirmation of message delivery.
Table of Contents
What Does It Mean When iMessage Doesn’t Say Delivered?
As a general rule, if you don’t see a message confirming that your communication made it to the recipient, it shows that there is some problem with the service pushing that message through.
However, the root cause of the issue could be one of several things. Here are some of the main issues you might face with a communication on iMessage not going through as it should:
1. The recipient might be out of both Wi-Fi range and cellular data. If both of these things happen to be true, they cannot receive data until their iPhone is back within range of at least one of these things.
This might include all data, but it relates to messages you might want to send through the app, too. Additionally, the same is true of your iPhone. It needs a connection to a network in order to send data out.
2. Similarly, even if the user should be within range of Wi-Fi or a cell tower, they might have their phone switched off. There is also the possibility that they’ve put it into ’Do Not Disturb’ mode in order to use a particular application without any interruptions. Some iPhone users who play games may do this for the duration of important gaming sessions.
3. It is possible that your iMessage app is glitching temporarily. If you suspect this to be the problem, you can try shutting down the program completely and restarting it.
4. If the above method doesn’t work, you can do the same thing with your entire iPhone. Giving a restart every once in a while can be helpful, and it may clear up any immediate problems that you are having with iMessage.
5. The person to whom you are trying to send a message may have a device that is not from Apple. If so, they are not running an iOS operating system, which means they cannot use iMessage themselves.
Should this be the case, you can use a setting that sends the iMessage content as a regular SMS. Once you apply this setting, it should send the content to that non-Apple device. However, there could be other issues going on that this fix does not address.
Will an iMessage Eventually Deliver?
Typically, iMessage content should deliver itself to the appropriate party eventually. There could be some other things wrong, many of which we touched on in our section above.
However, if you know for a fact that there is not a particular problem with your phone or iMessage application, it should have no trouble delivering the content to the recipient at some later date.
Apple understands that communications networks experience their own issues or delays. In order to combat this, the company decided to make sure that unsent iMessages can stay in a queue electronically for as many as 30 days.
By creating a queue, Apple allows the iMessage application to keep messages in a sort of sent but undelivered state for several days in a row. As it does this, the message will keep trying to reach the intended target device by itself. You should not need to do anything to speed up this process.
You can check the message regularly at your leisure to see if the app grams the ”delivered” status to it at any time. Further, if the program experiences several failed attempts to send the message as a regular iMessage communication, it may try to send it as a traditional SMS by itself.
Even if iMessage does not opt to send your communication as an SMS, you can do this using the settings we mentioned in our earlier section. However, for specific messages, it may be easier for you to just tap and hold the message that you see is not delivered. When you do, you should get a dialog box with the option to send that message as SMS content.
Should you choose to send the data this way, the message should appear in a green bubble once the app sends it. However, because it changed the content from native iMessage data to general SMS data, you will not see the delivered status that comes with iMessage.
This is true even if you successfully send the SMS to the recipient.
Am I Blocked if iMessage Doesn’t Say Delivered?
It is possible that someone put a block on your phone number if you are trying to send messages to a particular person through the app.
If you seem to miss getting the delivered status quite consistently, the person may have decided they don’t want to receive any content from you.
However, it is not a foregone conclusion that they have blocked you. One problem could be something we already talked about earlier in the article. Furthermore, there isn’t an easy way to tell if someone blocked you just by looking at the status of the message bubble by itself.
If you are concerned that someone has blocked you, it may be better to try to call them directly. A blocked number won’t get through to the recipient. In most cases, the device would direct you to leave a voice message instead. However, even this could have other causes besides a block on your number, so it is important not to jump to any conclusions.
If the person is using their phone for other things, you would still have to leave a message right away.
There is no hard and fast way to confirm that someone else blocked you, although you may be able to ask the party directly. If this is not an option, you may wish to check if you can send them data through apps other than iMessage. When someone blocks another person, they will usually make such a thing extend across multiple platforms.
If you check some other apps and find that things are going through, it shows that the issue is not one of the other party trying to avoid your content. Although there are ways that you could mask your number and try to call the other party, we recommend finding a way to ask them directly about this issue. It is one of the few ways to be certain about what is going on with your content.
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Why Do My iMessages Send So Slowly?
On most apps, messages should send themselves through almost immediately. This assumes that there are no network problems like the ones we’ve talked about, but you should see some indication that the message is on its way to the target within seconds.
Some users on iMessage might have to wait several minutes to see any progress with their messages, however. This is highly unusual behavior for the app, but how you fix it depends on which root cause you might have.
The first thing to do is check if this is an issue you are having with multiple contacts. If it is, there may be a bug in the operating system, or it could be a problem with your network. Fixing either of these two things may restore iMessage to its original functionality.
However, if you seem to be having a problem with messages getting through to a specific contact, you can try deleting the contact from your phone completely. Although you may lose some data that you did not back up, it could help the phone get over the issue of not sending messages to a particular recipient quickly enough.
Can iMessage Say Delivered but Not Go Through?
This problem usually should not occur. If it does, there could be a couple of issues at play.
First, you may have multiple numbers that you save for one contact. This could include old numbers they no longer use. If so, your message could go to the old number and show as one that the app delivered.
Otherwise, the intended recipient could have iMessage on multiple devices. If they do, there might be some issue with the message going to one device but not others, and it could seem like they didn’t get your message at all.
Conclusion
iMessage is a powerful and useful tool for sending content, and you can use it for both business and leisure. Like any messaging app, it can have issues sending data to another source. In most cases, these should be temporary problems that are the result of no network coverage, another person using their device at the time, or just a traffic problem on the network.
Restarting your phone or the app should fix most of these complaints, but you may need to dig deeper into the setup the recipient uses in order to find the true cause.