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You may have noticed that the text messages in your iPhone’s Messages app can appear as either green or blue.
The difference? Green messages are ordinary SMS text messages, while blue messages are using Apple’s proprietary iMessage format. If you’re used to seeing blue iMessage text bubbles but they are suddenly green, it can be an indication you’ve been blocked – but that’s just one possibility, and isn’t necessarily the most likely.
Here’s everything you need to know about why your iPhone is sending green messages, and how to fix it if you think it’s a mistake.
Ordinary SMS text messages are sent using your cellular voice service, and don’t use the internet or your data plan. All mobile phones — Android, iPhone, and otherwise — can use SMS.
iPhones have an additional option, though. By default, iPhones send and receive iMessages between other Apple devices. iMessage was built to send messages over the internet, using Wi-Fi or your cellular data plan.
When sending messages to another Apple device, your iPhone will use iMessages. But if you’re texting an Android phone, or you’re not connected to the internet, your iPhone will use SMS. As a general rule, you can’t send an iMessage to an Android phone.
But while iMessages are limited to Apple devices, they have a number of advantages over SMS.
Quick tip: It’s possible to send and receive iMessages on your Mac or Android, though you will need to follow the appropriate steps to configure the service properly for each device.
The bottom line is that iMessage is generally better than SMS, and your iPhone will use it whenever possible — you don’t have to do anything special to send an iMessage to another Apple device, aside from having iMessage turned on.
Here’s how to make sure iMessage is turned on:
1. Start the Settings app.
2. Tap Messages.
3. Make sure iMessage is turned on by swiping the button to the right.
It’s possible to disable iMessage entirely, which ensures that all your messages are sent as SMS using your cellular service’s voice network instead of Wi-Fi or your data service. You may want to switch to SMS if there are issues with Apple’s messaging system, or if you have an urgent message to send, but you can’t find a stable internet connection.
If you do this, all texts – sent to both iPhone and Android devices alike – will appear in green text bubbles.
Here’s how to switch to SMS only:
1. Start the Settings app.
2. Tap Messages.
3. Make sure iMessage is turned off by swiping the button to the left.