iOS 18 bug could cause Messages app to crash — here’s how to avoid data loss

Apple finally released iOS 18 on Monday, and like clockwork, bugs are starting to come to light.

It all starts with Apple Watch. You can directly share a watch face with someone else via Messages or Mail. The idea is to give other people access to a personalized watch face that you’ve customized yourself.

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Next, let’s say the recipient uses Messages in iOS 18 to reply to any text in a conversation thread that includes the shared watch face. In iOS 14 and later, you can reply directly to any previous message in the thread by simply long-pressing it and tapping Reply.

However, if you are using iOS 18, please do not do this.

Apparently, if your phone is running iOS 18, replying inline to a message using a shared watch face crashes the Messages app. What’s more, you can lose all messages in the conversation. The bug was stumbled upon by someone who shared the discovery with 9to5Mac, who was then able to reproduce the issue.

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But the problem doesn’t end there. If you run into this glitch, the Messages app will repeatedly crash if you try to open a conversation in the app. This means that you may not be able to send or reply to messages in other conversations either. What’s more, when the bug occurs, both the sender and recipient of a shared message on the watch face fall into the same trap.

On the positive side, replying to a message won’t cause an error if you’re using iOS 18.1, which is currently available as a developer beta — as long as you’re not using the threaded reply feature. Doing so in a conversation that includes a shared watch face will cause Messages to crash in iOS 18.1 beta, iPadOS 18.1 beta, and macOS 15.1 beta, 9to5Mac explained.

Also: Is iOS 18 Draining Your iPhone’s Battery? Here’s Why and What You Can Do

Since the app keeps crashing, taking any action to fix the issue is difficult. The only workaround for now is to delete the entire conversation, if possible. However, this will delete all the content in the thread, including messages and attached photos and videos. Even restoring the deleted conversation won’t help, as it would reintroduce the bug.

For now, those running iOS 18 and an Apple Watch should refrain from sharing watch faces via the Messages app. If you see a shared watch face in a conversation, don’t reply to it or any other message in the thread. Given this and other bugs in recent versions of Apple’s operating systems, it’s best to wait for a bug-fixing update, which will hopefully arrive in the near future.