Why Can’t I Leave a Three-Person iMessage Conversation?

I’m the peacemaker in my brood; my three siblings fight viciously with each other, constantly, but are all amicable with me. I thought it might be nice to try to rekindle our relationships, so I invited them all to an iMessage thread. They bickered nonstop, and so one day I was like, “I love you all but I need a break from this” and left the thread, and now they’re all three stuck there together and can never leave.<p>lol

One problem that I <i>think</i> Apple has still not fixed is how group iMessage conversations treat you if you move your phone number to Android or whatever else. The iPhone users in the iMessage group conversation never re-learn that your number isn&#x27;t iMessage-capable. Their 1:1 conversations with you will adjust to text messages, but the group messages won&#x27;t. As a sender, you&#x27;ll think you are sending messages to everyone successfully. As a recipient, you just won&#x27;t get anything at all. For the group messages to fix themselves, the other participants each need to delete the entire conversation that contains that exact mix of participants, so that their phones re-learn your number and use regular text messaging. It seems minor but it is one of those not-so-edge cases that creates undeserved stickiness for iPhone users and undeserved frustration for everyone else.

&gt;&gt;If Leave this Conversation is grayed out on your iPhone, there are only three participants in the iMessage conversation, and you can’t convert a three-person iMessage conversation to an iMessage between two people. &gt;&gt; Even if you delete the entire conversation from your iPhone, you will be added back to the group the next time someone sends a message. The only way to leave a three-person iMessage conversation is to add someone else to the group so it becomes a four-person conversation: Then you can leave.

Funny how this article from 2016 says “Apple programmers are no doubt close to building this feature now”<p>For serious group communication I just use Signal. I’m still on iMessage but I could just switch it off and revert to ye good olde SMS.