iOS 18’s iMessage Bug: What You Need to Know and How to Avoid It

If you're using iOS 18, have an Apple Watch, and frequently share watch faces via iMessage, there's a specific bug you need to be aware of. This bug could lead to serious issues, including the potential loss of important data.

What’s the Issue?

According to a report by 9to5Mac, the bug occurs when you reply in a threaded iMessage conversation after someone has shared a watch face with you from their Apple Watch. Normally, sharing a customized watch face—complete with personalized complications and color schemes—is a handy feature, allowing users to easily send their favorite configurations to friends. However, the problem arises when you respond to that shared watch face in a threaded reply.

If you do, the Messages app crashes repeatedly whenever you attempt to open that particular conversation. Worse still, this affects both you and the person who shared the watch face, making it impossible to send or receive other messages in that chat.

This issue only seems to affect users running iOS 18.1 (currently in beta) who reply to a shared watch face thread. However, even if you're on the beta, if the other person is not, their response to the watch face can trigger the same crash on your device, whether you’re on iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, or macOS 15.1 beta.

How to Avoid the Bug

Until a fix is rolled out, the best way to avoid this bug is simple: don’t reply in a thread to a shared watch face. It’s tempting to use threaded replies for clarity, but doing so could cause your Messages app to become unusable.

What to Do If You Encounter the Bug

If you’ve already triggered the bug, there’s only one solution for now: both you and the other user need to delete the entire conversation thread from your devices. Unfortunately, this isn’t easy if Messages keeps crashing.

Deleting the thread will also result in the loss of all other messages in that conversation, including any photos, videos, or attachments that haven’t been saved elsewhere. After clearing the chat history, make sure not to restore the affected thread, as this will just bring the bug back. Restoring from a backup may not help either, since iMessage syncs with iCloud.

A Fix Is Coming

Apple is likely working on a patch for the public release of iOS 18, but until then, avoid replying directly to shared watch faces. It's better to wait for a proper fix than risk losing years' worth of messages and memories.

Stay cautious, and keep an eye out for an official update from Apple to resolve this frustrating issue.

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