I received this spam message on my Watch 8, which updated to watchOS 11.5 yesterday, but it doesn't appear on my phone (iPhone 16, iOS 18.4.1). First time I've had this happen, I've had the watch 2 years, but phone was replaced last month - what gives?
[Edited by Moderator]
Apple Watch Series 8, watchOS 11
Yes, before I posted my question here. But that only refers to viewing senders I have blocked. I have not blocked any senders, nor have I filtered out unknown senders.
I was referring to seeing texts from any senders that Apple might be blocking behind the scenes aside from any senders I have personally blocked. Apparently with my husband's Pixel, Google filters out some suspected spam texts automatically, but there's an option to view what was filtered out (conceptually similar to Gmail's spam email folder). I have no idea whether Apple actually does anything similar, which is why I asked. It wasn't anything that even occurred to me until my husband asked if I had looked in the message app's spam folder, and I had no idea what he meant.
None of that explains why I received a message on my watch that did not (and still does not) appear on my phone, unless it had something to do with updating the watch OS the day before updating the phone OS. It's also the first time I've received a spam message that was sent (or apparently sent) from an iCloud email address, which seems a curious coincidence.
Yes, before I posted my question here. But that only refers to viewing senders I have blocked. I have not blocked any senders, nor have I filtered out unknown senders.
I was referring to seeing texts from any senders that Apple might be blocking behind the scenes aside from any senders I have personally blocked. Apparently with my husband's Pixel, Google filters out some suspected spam texts automatically, but there's an option to view what was filtered out (conceptually similar to Gmail's spam email folder). I have no idea whether Apple actually does anything similar, which is why I asked. It wasn't anything that even occurred to me until my husband asked if I had looked in the message app's spam folder, and I had no idea what he meant.
None of that explains why I received a message on my watch that did not (and still does not) appear on my phone, unless it had something to do with updating the watch OS the day before updating the phone OS. It's also the first time I've received a spam message that was sent (or apparently sent) from an iCloud email address, which seems a curious coincidence.
According to this external source, other users are having similar issues, this seems to be going on for a couple of months and different kind of watchOS and iOS versions.
Did you check your settings on your iPhone for receiving text messages?
Besides using the Feedback link, contacting the official Apple Support might also be an option, to make them aware of this problem and let them check your personal settings from their side.
This happened twice in the past several months, an email based (in this case re: Tolls that’s been widely reported) sms appearing on the watch but not other iOS devices, unknown senders allowed on phone and iPad for the reasons you stated but neither received the message.
In the many years checking Apple Forums for solutions to issues that affect countless customers (keeping in mind the total amount spent per person is higher than any other consumer technology company) I’ve never seen any solutions here (or elsewhere typically), such is the black box of our beloved ecosystem. The really important (bad) stuff does seem to have priority for fixing however, leaving annoyances to persist with no official acknowledgement.
My 2 cents is that since the watch is perhaps their most device agnostic device (Android users must receive message notifications too) vs the iPhone, it allows email to phone number (indeed isn’t set up to independently block messages) readily. The iCloud sender address may be spoofed to make the message seem more legitimate (mine used Hotmail, a possible clue!) but that doesn’t mean they’ve sent it to your ApppleID email. Most likely they’ve used the US carriers’ free “email to sms” services to mass send messages to our billions of breached phone numbers from their computers (robo copy/paste!).
ATT will decommission their email to text service next month, while Verizon and T Mobile still offer it; Verizon does offer you to opt out of this “feature” https://www.verizon.com/about/account-security/email-to-text-faqs. It’s a now anachronistic legacy (ie pre smartphone/iPhone era) service from when everyone didn’t have a mobile phone and SMS (unlike email) wasn’t essentially free.
This just happened to me yesterday and this morning, except this morning's texts were supposedly from recruiters at Amazon.com. I had my watch's cellular on; I'm going to turn it off for now to see if it makes a difference.
I had not at that time because I hadn't seen a notification for it. (But I have now.)
Is there a way to see spam/blocked messages on the phone? I know my husband's Android app has that feature. I have never set the phone to filter unknown senders.
Thank you for the info!
Filter Unknown Senders is NOT enabled. I get a lot of valid texts from numbers not in my contacts list (usually related to doctor appointments, furniture delivery, etc.), and do not want to miss them. I have had the same mobile number for nearly 30 years (since the days of giant brick phones), and spam texts have never been a problem before - I only get a few a year.
I do have my Gmail and iCloud email addresses as being able to send/receive, so I will remove them and see if that fixes the problem. Interestingly enough, I only created the iCloud email address a few weeks ago, and only to use as a recovery email address for my Gmail account since I was getting rid of the email account previously used for that. I haven't used that email account for anything else.
I had submitted the issue on the Feedback form prior to posting here, but not to Apple support. Thanks for the link.
To clarify further, no email “spoofing” is required from the sender because the message is not sent from an actual email address but our carrier’s “email to text” web page, which routes the “message” directly to your phone without needing full SMS routing (as a phone number to phone number message would). It’s like a short message board carriers left open for anyone who knows your phone number (but necessarily you, ie anyone these days) to contact. As far as I know, the iPhone Phone and Messages apps only recognize phone numbers and bona fide iCloud iMessages, while the Watch detects these carrier delivered “messages” like any other alert.
Did you already have a look at this related article?
Block, filter, and report messages on iPhone - Apple Support
Did you already update your iPhone to iOS 18.5 as well?
I just got 2 more texts to my watch and not phone. Both are spam messages from "the HR team at Glassdoor". Both are from email addresses, but not iCloud ones.
I think you are probably correct.
Receiving spam messages on my Apple Watch but not on my iPhone
