Setting up Android phone to work with Apple Watch and iMessage

11th June 2025

Here are the key steps I went through to my Android phone to work with iMessage and with my Apple Watch. This was all done on AT&T. I suspect it’s similar for all U.S. carriers but I haven’t tried it on any others. I first got my Apple Watch working, which wasn’t too bad, except I wanted full support for iMessages both on my watch and on my Android phone. That is the hard part, but the steps below walk through all of it:

1. I had a newish iPhone, which did not have a physical SIM card that could be removed. The new phones use eSIMs, i.e. software SIM cards. So I went to Amazon and bought a cheap old iPhone for $177 to switch everything over to this phone.
2. When I powered on this old iPhone, I went through the setup process as if it’s a brand new phone, and I transferred all of my data over from my existing iPhone (the one that has the eSIM). The one small surprise I had is that this old phone I bought was only 64 gigs, and the iPhone I’ve been using has a lot more storage usage than that. It took me a bit of time to decide what apps to delete and what data to remove. The reason that setting up this phone matters is because it will ensure that everything works smoothly with the Apple Watch, both in terms of watch apps and app notifications that I want to come to my watch.
3. I took both iPhones into the AT&T store and asked them to transfer my number to this phone. It’s important to let them know that you want a physical SIM put into this phone. After transferring my phone number over and confirming it works, NumberSync stops working on the Apple Watch. So, while I was still in the AT&T store, I got their help making sure that the Apple Watch still worked to receive phone calls and texts.
4. Now I was able to take the SIM card out of this new iPhone and pop it in the Android phone. I set up the Android phone completely and made sure calling and regular SMS were working. All of this went smoothly. Notably, after anywhere from 10 minutes to 24 hours, Apple’s servers will detect that there is no longer an active iPhone on the account and it will de-register your phone # from iMessage. You can tell this is the case if you try to text yourself from a friend’s iPhone. It will be clear you’re sending a green SMS text message. This is the key puzzle to solve.
5. I took the new iPhone back into the AT&T store and let them know the phone had stopped working because the SIM card was removed. I asked to buy a new SIM card to put in this phone (it’s $5) and have them transfer that phone number over to the new SIM card. Be sure to open Settings > Apps > Messages, tap RCS Messaging and make sure RCS Messaging is enabled and that it does not show the text “Waiting for activation.” Wait until RCS is fully activated.
6. While you are waiting, it’s worth making sure that iMessage is set up to sync with iCloud. Go to Settings > Your name > iCloud > and ensure Messages is On. You probably also want to make sure the Messages app is installed on your Mac and has fully synced all the messages from iCloud.
7. This is where things get tricky: Make sure the RCS activation step above is completed. Now turn the iPhone on airplane mode (ensure wifi and cellular are both turned off). Remove the working SIM and put the non-working SIM card into the phone. When you to go Settings > Cellular you’ll see this non-working SIM card still knows what phone # it was assigned. Tap this number to edit it and remove the + from the front. It starts off looking like +1 (777) 777-7777 and you just edit it to be 1 (777) 777-7777. Now turn wifi back on but keep cellular off. Your Mac might show this as a new # being added to iMessage and ask you to approve.
8. Now go to Settings > Apps > Messages > Send & Receive. It should show your phone # and your and iCloud email address. In the top section, “You can receive iMessages to and reply from.” there should be a spinner next to your phone number so you can’t select it (because the current SIM in your phone is not the active one). If you tap to try and select the phone #, it will warn you that you’re about to remove your phone # from iMessage. Do NOT do this. Simply leave your phone on this screen, with the spinner, overnight (so plug it into power). The next morning I looked at my phone and the spinner had stopped and the phone # was finally selectable. In the top section, select your phone and email. In the bottom section (Start new conversations from) I selected my phone. I have no idea why this spinner-waiting strategy works, but it’s been reported by multiple people online and it played out exactly as others reported.
9. At this point, your Android phone is fully working for phone calls and SMS, and your Apple Watch and computer are fully working for iMessage. Now you need to get your iMessages over to your Android phone, and you do this with a special app and service called BlueBubbles.app. BlueBubbles is a special app you install on your Android phone and a special client you need to install on a Mac which has access to your iMessage. My main Mac is a portable notebook, so it’s not always turned on. So I rent a Mac from MacInCloud.com.
10. Click to Customize their cheapest dedicated server ($59 per month). They let you pick the operating system to have installed and according to BlueBubbles FAQ (read What is the best macOS device and version to use?) they recommend Ventura. I kept all the other options at the least expensive.
11. Once you get into the computer, be sure to login iCloud in the Mac settings and make sure your iMessage is working and that it’s fully synced to your account.
12. Download and install the server for MacOS. There are a lot of steps to set up but their wizard did a pretty good job walking me through it.
13. Lastly, install the BlueBubbles app on your Android, in settings it will ask for the same Google credentials that you provided during the BlueBubbles server setup. It all just worked and my messages appear, I can hold to send reactions to messages, I can be part of group iMessage conversations, etc!