When someone sends you an iMessage on your iPhone or iPad, you can do way more than just reply to it; you can also send your reaction to the message, starting with iOS 10.
To receive text messages on your Mac (from non-Apple devices or when iMessage is unavailable), follow these simple steps follow these simple steps to turn on text message forwarding on your iPhone, so the messages can be available on your Mac. You can also sign out in Messages on your Mac. Under Preferences, then click Accounts and click the Sign Out button. Then you will no longer receive messages on your Mac. That’s how you send a tapback response from the Mac. You can not only send the tapbacks but you can also receive them from friends. They will show up right above the message bubbles just like they do on the iPhone or iPad’s Messages app.
If you ever need to copy or backup your iPhone SMS text messages (or even iMessages) to your computer, whether it's a PC or a Mac, you can do that with a useful app called BackupTrans iPhone SMS. Step 3: Send text messages from Mac to phones Type the content of your message slightly below the recipient box. Confirm that you have typed a complete message and have the right recipient and click on the Send button to send it to the target numbers. Step 2: On your Mac, launch the Messages app (in the Dock by default) and go to Messages/Preferences Click “Accounts.” Click “Accounts.” You may see more than one account, but one of them should say “iMessage” underneath it.
Sometimes there’s no better way to show someone how you feel about what they’ve said than with some sort of visual effect as opposed to simply saying something back, and that’s why Apple implemented this feature.
What kind of reactions can you send?
Unfortunately, there’s no way to add additional reactions to the Messages app at this point in time, but it supports all of the following reaction types out of the box:
Heart
Thumbs up
Thumbs down
Haha
Exclamation point
Question mark
Sending your reaction on iOS
To send a reaction, you will need to tap and hold on someone’s iMessage to you. After you do, you’re going to see a bubble with some new options for reacting to whatever it was that they said:
For example, in the message above where the sender doesn’t know what reactions are, we’re going to send a “Ha Ha” reaction by tapping on it from the bubble. You can see how the reaction embeds itself at the top right of the chat bubble.
Now when the sender gets a notification, it’s going to say we “laughed at” their message:
Once the sender opens the conversation, they are going to see the “Ha Ha” reaction at the top right of the chat bubble, just like we did after sending it.
Sending your reaction on macOS
Likewise, you can also send reactions from the Messages app on your Mac. To do this, click and hold on a message bubble that was sent to you via iMessage, and a similar reactions bubble will appear:
Now, just click on the reaction you want to send, and it will be placed on the message bubble just like how it looks in iOS:
In this example, we used the “Heart” reaction instead of the “Ha Ha” reaction, and you can see the little heart placed at the top right of the chat bubble.
Compatibility
To send and receive reactions in all of their glory, you must be running iOS 10 or macOS Sierra. They will work across all Apple devices, including iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and Mac.
Unfortunately, if someone you’re iMessaging has an earlier version of iOS or macOS, then all they’re going to see is a little dialogue instead of a colorful reaction image:
It doesn’t look as pretty as the reactions do, but they still communicate the point you’re trying to convey if the person you’re iMessaging doesn’t have iOS 10 or macOS Sierra installed.
It’s worth noting that reactions don’t work with SMS messages, as they’re intended for iMessages only. You can tell you’re using iMessage when the chat bubbles are blue instead of green. Attempting to send reactions to an SMS sender will result in a dialogue like the one shown above.
Related:
Are you going to be taking full advantage of reactions while you use iMessage? Share in the comments!
How To Like A Text In Messages For Macbook Pro
Recently I noted that, for whatever reason, Messages on my Mac quit offering the option to send folks messages in any format but its native iMessage format. Since some of my friends, relatives and business associates are still heathens and don't have Macs or iPhones, I had to rejigger things so I could send simple text messages.
How To Text From A Mac
If you're facing the same problem, here's how you send SMS texts from OS X Messages (You'll need both your Mac and iPhone handy):
How To Like A Text In Messages For Macbook
Make sure your Mac's running OS X Yosemite (10.10 or higher) and your iPhone is running iOS 8.x.
Click on the Messages app in your Mac to open it.
Go to your iPhone. Tap Settings > Messages.
Tap Text Message Forwarding.
You'll see a list of all your devices linked to your Apple ID. Choose the one you want to send and receive messages and select On.
You'll see a six-digit code pop up in Messages on your Mac. An alert window will appear marked Text Message Forwarding will show up on the iPhone.
Enter the six digit code displayed in Messages on the Mac into the alert window on the iPhone and tap Allow.
How To Connect Text Messages To Mac
Voila! You're ready. When someone sends a text message to your iPhone, it will appear inside Messages in Yosemite. And you can now reply with a text message from your Mac — or start a new text message. To start a new message:
In the Messages window, click the Compose button to start a new message.
Enter a name, an email address, or a phone number in the To field.
Enter message text in the field at the bottom of the window. You can also drag files, such as a photo, to the field at the bottom of the window.
Press Return on your keyboard to send the message.