Not getting message notifications on Apple Watch when using my computer
For a long time, I've been having issues with not getting certain text message notifications on my Apple Watch. It was always very mysterious. I'd often get a text message from an important family member about something time-urgent, yet I would not be notifiied. They'd then ask me whether I got the message, and I'd look at my phone. The message was displayed on my iphone lock screen, but nothing had gone through to my watch.
I'd then try to test the idea that I was not receiving notifications on my apple watch. So I'd send a message from their phone to me, and the text message would go through to my watch perfectly.
I noticed that it would often arise in the late afternoon (but it would occur other times) when I'd be finishing up work for the day and I'd get sent a message. I thought that maybe I just got too absorbed in work and ignored the arm vibration. It was a great mystery.
But I think that I may have finally resolved the problem.
I think that when Apple sends iMessage (i.e., Apple text messages) notifications, it looks for what is the active device. Thus, when I'm using my Mac, it sends the notification to my Mac rather than my watch. This would make sense why I was not getting the watch notifications while working, and why every time I tried to test the issue, I could not reproduce it, because I was away from my computer.
I also hate notifications and interruptions on my computer. So I'd disabled most notifications on my computer. In particular, I'd disabled notifications from "messages" in the notifications center. So, I think when I was on the computer, the notification was directed to the Mac, and then the Mac was applying these notification settings to silence the message, so no notification was received anywhere.
So, it seems that the two solutions are to (a) go to the messages app on the mac and log out of the messages app or (b) enable message notifications on the Mac (and then receive messages on the Mac). For now, I've done both. Hopefullly, it finally solves the issue.
















