Why are my text messages not sending to a specific person in Android?

When you just can’t send text messages to one person on your Android phone, try these troubleshooting ways –

Check if the contact is blocked

If text messages are being sent to all other contacts but it just one specific contact that you are unable to send a message to, then probably that contact might be blocked on your phone knowingly or unknowingly or someone who has access to your Android device just might have blocked their number.

To check if a contact is blocked –

1. Launch the Messages app
2. Tap on the three dots
3. Select Spam and Blocked
4. Tap on the three dots
5. Choose Blocked Contacts
6. Check if that number is listed

Note that if you haven’t blocked that number then you need to also make sure that the person you are trying to send a text message to is not blocking you. Who knows if they accidentally or willingly listed your phone number on their blocked list. So, it’s better to ask them directly.

Reboot your Android phone

Sometimes, just a simple reboot can solve your problem. Restarting your device will give it a fresh start and will fix some minor issues like network errors, the device being unresponsive or frozen, etc. It’s better to try this too –

1. Press & hold the Power button
2. Choose Restart/Reboot
3. Your phone will reboot
4. Try sending a text to that number again

Note that the steps to reboot an android device vary with the version. However, the above steps are the most common ones.

Check if the number is working

You will have to check if the number that you are trying to send a text is actually working or not. In order to do so, simply make a phone call and know whether it’s ringing or getting a busy tone, or just switched off.

If it’s ringing or you get a busy tone, it’s clear that the phone number is being used. However, getting a busy tone might suggest us two things – 1) The person is on another phone call or 2) The person blocked you from his/her end.

If you have a common friend, try reaching out to them and ask them to send a text to this specific person and get to know whether only your messages are not being sent or not.

Deactivate iMessage

If you are trying to send text messages to a person who is an iPhone user, then the actual reason behind this could be iMessage. It’s iPhone’s own messaging network that may sometimes block your messages as you are an Android user. So, that iPhone user needs to disable iMessage on his/her iPhone in order to receive messages from you normally. To deactivate iMessage –

Ask that iPhone user to perform these steps,

1. Connect the iPhone to wifi
2. Launch the Settings app
3. Go to Messages
4. Turn off iMessage

Note that the change may take affect only after a few minutes. So, until then you will have to keep your iPhone powered on.