Messages app vs. multiple contacts with same phone number

[BlaqC]

I have two contacts for myself in Contacts, both with the same phone number. We'll call them Charles (my Google account) and ~Owner (same phone number, name has a tilde to stand out in the Messages thread list and appear first in the Contacts list).

I used to be able to text myself (~Owner), but now, I can select ~Owner, but the message will end up in a thread named after the Charles account.

Apparently, both contacts were merged, but the problem persists after creating a new ~Owner contact and clearing the Messages cache.

How can I recover the ability to text ~Owner and have it appear under a different Messages thread from Charles?

 

[Rukbat]

Messages works by phone number, not by the name of the entry in Contacts, so you can have 5 entries for your number, all under different names, and texting any of them will end up in the same Messages list.

 

[BlaqC]

Thank you. How can I control which contact name appears in the Messages thread?

 

[ManiacJoe]

You cannot control this.
The contact data is coming from a SQL join clause in the DB processing of the messages. Most likely the programmer assumed that the join would return only one row for each phone number and did not put an ORDER BY clause on the SELECT statement, which results in you getting back the two contacts in "undefined" order instead of the alphabetical order you were hoping with the tilde.

 

[BlaqC]

Here's a workaround, then: append a useless extension number to the desired contact. I added ",1" to my ~Owner contact, enabling me to have a distinctive Messages thread.

 

[Mathew3296]

Messages works by phone number, mygiftcardsite not by the name of the entry in Contacts, so you can have 5 entries for your number, all under different names, and texting any of them will end up in the same Messages list.

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