How to get Apple's "Messages" consolidated into one thread on multiple devices

I recently solved a small thorn in my communication’s side involving sending and receiving apple messages across all my devices.

The Problem

I was having was multiple message threads with the same person on my laptop, iPad, and iPhone.

For example, Jane would send me a message from her phone and I would get it on my Macbook pro, but not my phone. Or she would send me a message from her laptop and I would get it on my phone but not my MacBook pro.

This would lead to me having multiple thread conversations for the same person which is confusing. Also, I might miss a text if I’m on one of my devices and don’t have the other near me.

After spending some time to figure out a solution I thought I would share it.

The Solution

Configure the “start conversations from” message preference on all your devices to be the same.

After I did that, all messages I sent going forward went to one thread all of the person’s devices. No more threads with different titles.

The same went for the person on the other end. Once they configured their settings, all the messages they sent to me came to that same thread all my devices.

For example, if I am at the grocery store and a client sends me a change request that I receive on my iPhone, I can reply from my phone and my reply will appear on all my devices in one thread. So when I get home and add to the reply from my laptop, my reply gets added to that thread and can be received by my client on any of their devices. So if they sent it from their phone and went home, they could see my reply from my laptop along with all the other messages in one thread. Whew!

I hope this makes sense and is useful to others. Leave a comment below about your messages' thorn in the side story. Let me know how useful this article was to you (good and bad).