Several times now, I've received an incoming text and replied to the wrong person by accident. I thought I'd describe what I'm doing. If everyone is seeing this, maybe it's a bug.
Here's the initial situation: On MacOS, at least one conversation exists in the Messages app, but it's an old conversation, and the app itself is closed. Then you get a notification that someone new (different conversation) has sent you a text, and you want to send them a reply.
Reproducer steps:
- Go to the dock, or use spotlight, and open the Messages app.
- Navigate to conversations.
- The old conversation is selected. To select the new conversation instead, jump to the top of the conversations list and select it by pressing VO+Space. VoiceOver will read the most recent text in this thread, and it will match what was announced for the notification. So it's very clear which conversation is being selected.
- Navigate to the message field then type and send a reply.
Expected behavior: Your text message should go to the person who just texted you. After all, you just selected that conversation, right?
Observed behavior: Your text goes to the recipient in the old conversation. You navigate back to the list of conversations and find that the old conversation, not the new one, is selected. You send them another text to apologize for butt-texting them.
Has anyone else experienced this? This seems to happen to me all the time, and I simply can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. But, hopefully, discussing it here will give me ideas about different ways to respond to that incoming text.
Please don't tell me to use the notifications area, not until Apple makes it easier to use. There must be a way to do this through the Messages app that is deterministic.
Comments
I don’t have this, but
Maybe use control option left arrow to go to the latest conversation ? Or, once you have selected the new conversation, even if you do the old method, press control option left arrow until you get to the persons information just to double check that you are on that person‘s contact.
Have you tried pressing…
Have you tried pressing enter, or space by itself, rather than VO plus space, when you are trying to activate a particular message stream?
Thanks
Just me, I guess. Next time it happens, I'll pay real close attention to what's happening and try to pin down where I'm going off the rails.
I wouldn't say that.
I don't end up sending to the wrong place, but I do often suspect that I might be about to. It's finicky for sure.
Not only press VO-Space on the conversation in the list so that it's selected. Also check using the messages list that you're going to post to the write conversation. It could be paranoia, or it could be what's missing in your routine.
Well… 🙁
Hi! You’re not the only one — that’s happened to me too, a couple of times actually. I thought I was just tired or too focused on work. Now I always double-check before sending anything, just to be sure I’m in the right chat. Honestly, I wasn’t really paying attention when it happened… I kind of reply on autopilot sometimes. It was a bit embarrassing, so now I’m extra careful!
It’s only happens to me in group chats
Like I control option right arrow to someone that I want to add to the group chat and press enter. It adds the first person voiceover put focus on, and not the person who I wanted to add. Extremely frustrating.
Issues adding names to chats
Thanks for mentioning recipients. This is a different issue from my OP, but possibly related, so I'll pursue the tangent.
I've ran into problems just adding one name as a chat recipient to a new conversation. I enter part of the name, navigate to the list of matches, and select the name. Then I navigate to the message area and select that. Then I type the message. Seems like I'm doing everything right, but I end up with a recipient that consists of only the part of the name I typed followed by the text of the message, as if I never selected the full name from the list of matches and never moved focus to the message field.
It's good to hear I'm not the only one having trouble with this UI. As I mentioned in my previous comment, I'll be diligent next time I use Messages and try to identify specifically what is, or is not, happening.