Different iPhones, separate accounts, synching contacts/texts by themselves.

[DowntonTrout]

My DD and my iPhones have suddenly started sharing information between themselves. So any new contacts appear on both phones. Previous contacts too, so that text messages she sends, and the replies, appear on my phone too. We have different numbers and hersis PAYG mine is contract. The accounts are not linked.

Only certain contacts though. Eg messages between me and DH go to her phone as well as mine and his. If she sends him a text it appears on his phone as if it has come from me, even when sent from her number. All her friends messages come to my phone as well as hers, even though they are sent to her number. It's like it has created group sharing.

Now, we sync to the same PC, but have them set up as different phones. They sync over wifi when we're at home on our home network. We've all had iPhones for years and this has never happened before. At first I quite liked it because I was able to keep an eye on what she was doing with her friends ( she's 11, I wasn't snooping and don't read them all, but if anything caught my eye I would just check there was nothing going on that shouldn't be.) I now realise that she can read my messages too and she has sent a couple of texts that appear to be from me to my whole contact list by mistake. So it isn't ideal.

I don't know how this has been enabled or what one of us has done but I need to stop it. Any ideas? It's driving me mad!

Do you both use the same apple id on them?
Go to settings - messages - send and receive. It will tell you what accounts and telephone numbers you are using to send and receive essayed. The phone numbers will be different but I get the email addresses for iMessage will be the same

Yes- same apple id. Because she uses my iTunes account. But my other DD did too and this never happened. I will check.

This is a case of only knowing a little bit and when something goes wrong you have no idea how to fix it. Thanks.

Ok. Have looked at my settings.

My apple id.

You can be reached by iMessage at

My number
Her number. } all ticked
My email

Start new conversations from

Her number. - not ticked
My number. - ticked
My email. - not ticked.

So what do I do- and do I repeat whatever I do on her phone?

Hi DowntonTrout,
It should be pretty easy to get this problem fixed for you.

Firstly, a bit of background on Apple's services.

Apple runs two main services for iPhones, iPads & Apple computers:

1. iTunes: A content shop where you buy apps, tv shows, movies, songs etc for your iPhones, iPads etc.
2. iCloud: An online service that syncs your calendar, mail, contacts, messages etc between multiple iPhones, iPads or other Apple devices.

You and DD are receiving each other's messages and contacts because iCloud's settings are set to share this information between the two iPhones.

For the iPhones to access iTunes and iCloud, an Apple ID and password needs to be entered into the settings for iCloud and iTunes.

On your daughter's iPhone, you can see thee Apple ID account details for each of iCloud and iTunes by going to these menus in the iPhone:
iCloud: Settings>iCloud>Account
iTunes: Settings>iTunes & App Stores>Apple ID

(you might need to scroll down the page a bit in Settings to find these options).

I'm guessing you'll find the same Apple ID username (email) and password on your DD's phone for both iCloud and iTunes.

If you want to stop her iPhone from accessing iCloud and syncing with your iCloud updates, the simplest way would be to go into Settings>iCloud>Account and then delete out your Apple ID username and password. iCloud would then be deactivated for her iPhone (assuming she doesn't know your Apple ID username and password, otherwise she could then re-enter these details!).

The downside to this approach is that iCloud can also backup her phones contents, so switching it off would mean this content is no longer being backed up for her.

The other option would be for her to get her own Apple ID appleid.apple.com/. She could then use this Apple ID as her iCloud settings. Her iClound data would then be separate to your iCloud data as they would be linked to two different Apple IDs.

You could share the same Apple ID for iTunes on both iPhones if you like, despite having different Apple IDs for iCloud, as you can enter different Apple IDs for iTunes and iCloud on the same iPhone.

Hope that helps!

Wow. Brilliant. This is, I'm sure, what's happening.

Will see when she's home from school and will update then. Thank you.

Should I do the same thing with our iPads too?