phone number or email address for Messages?

[DaveWT]

My wife and I have made a lot of changes to our cell plans in the last month and the result is that when we send a text via the Messages app on our iPhones our email address is used rather than our phone number. (i.e. our recipient sees our email address presented.) I have tried to do a lot of reading and everything (as well as your daughter's chiding) seems to suggest we should be using our phone number instead of our email addresses. One contradiction to the logic presented in the articles I have read is that it is suggested that "most people will have your phone number and not your email address". We are the opposite: We rarely give out our phone number (except to family and maybe a doctor etc.), but all our friends know our email addresses.

In any case, On my iPhone 11 (16.5.1 c) if I go to Settings > Messages > Send & Receive, I see two sections: The first says "you can receive iMessages to and reply from" and there is my phone number and 3 email addresses shown, all check marked. But below that there is another section: "Start new conversations from" with the same 4 choices but presently one of my email addresses is checked. It would seem that here is where I should uncheck that and check my phone number.

The problem is that on both my wife's iPhone 13 and my daughter's SE (both on the latest iOS also) this second section doesn't exist so I can't see how to set my wife's iPhone up this way, and I don't see how my daughter's iPhone is already set to use the phone number rather than the email address.

One of the strange quirks we are seeing is that if I send a text to this daughter, it also goes as a green text but if I send a text to both daughters (the other is on an iPhone also) it goes as a blue iMessage. Can't see why that would happen.

 

[chas_m]

It's generally best to use your phone number as your primary way of being contacted, since MOST people will be sending you iMessages from iPhones. But you should list your email address as an alternative.

Be sure to REMOVE any outdated phone numbers or email addresses.

 

[DaveWT]

Yes, since I wrote my original post, we "caved" and went with our phone numbers, as all advice seemed to point that way, even though it seemed the opposite of what suited our (admittedly) weird style of using our phones. All seems to be good now.