You go back to your iPhone or iPad and find the thread you were looking for. Then, oops, it’s a wrong thread - probably some old one. So you open your Messages app on Mac and automatically reach for the recent thread. ✕ Why are my iMessages not syncing between iPhone and Mac? Both names are widely used and often interchangeable (you’ll even come across “iMessages,”) so please don’t be confused about different names we use in the article. Today, iMessage is a feature inside Messages, denoting the type of messages that can be sent from one Apple device to another.

Like other multimedia messages (and messages in general), these can be deleted if you no longer want the embedded video to show up in your messages app, or you can delete the entire message thread too.IMessage was the official name of Apple’s messaging service from its launch in 2011 until the major revamp in 2020 - it’s when the Messages app arrived. A video sent through messages will also play directly in the messages app, though it opens in a separate viewing screen. Remember this is intended to work with video URLs and links shared from the web, where thumbnails are drawn for the shared link. This is a subtle feature but it’s really quite useful, give it a try.

Of course you can still open the sent/received video URL into a web browser app if desired, to accomplish that you simply press on the link underneath the video embed thumbnail and it will open into Safari in iOS or the default web browser on the Mac. This is great because it allows you to watch a shared video without having to open a different app or leave a message conversation. Once the video is playing you can tap anywhere in the video embed to stop or pause the video. The feature is the same on Messages for Mac and iOS: Tap the subtle play icon in the middle of the thumbnail of the video embedded in the message to start playing.Send or receive a video URL link from YouTube, Vimeo, etc (for example, here’s a YouTube video).Open the Messages app and go into any iMessage thread as usual.This trick works the exact same whether you’re in Messages on iPhone, iPad, or Mac: How to Play Embedded Video Messages in iOS and Mac OS For iPhone and iPad, that means anything beyond iOS 10, and for Mac that means anything beyond Mac OS 10.12. Embedded videos can be played in Messages for both Mac OS and iOS, as long as you’re running a modern version of system software.

How to link mac and iphone messages