Share a Name and Profile Picture or Animoji With Others in iOS 13 Messages

Hi this is Gary with MacMost.com. In this episode let me show you how to use the new Profile feature in Messages to send a custom photo, or animoji, and a name to anybody you're messaging with.

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So a new feature in iOS 13 allows you to create a custom photo and name that you can send to people while you're messaging to them. So instead of them just getting a phone number and email address and having to go and create a contact based on that they'll get an image and a name from you. They can very easily create a contact. The easiest was to do this is to go into the Messages app.

The first time you go into Messages after updating to iOS 13 you're going to see a screen like this. Use Choose Name and Photo to set this up right now. You'll go through a series of screens that are a little different than what you'll see later on. You can flip through some existing animoji and images that you've used before and your initials. You'll also can go to Display Name and change your first and last name. In View Mode you'll have lots of options. You can choose to take a picture with the camera. You can choose to select a picture from your Photo Library. You can just use your initials, or select on of Apple's emoji characters, or you can use the Plus button to make your own.

If you choose to make your own then you're going to go through a whole series of screens where you get to pick all the different aspects of your animoji. It takes a couple of minutes so I'll speed it up here. So I'll pick hairstyle, skin tone, eyes, nose, mouth. All sorts of different aspects to create your unique anemoji character. Then when you're done you'll be back at this screen where you can Edit your name and then hit Continue. Then you'll be asked if you want to use this photo everywhere which means it will not only be used for messages but also in your Contacts app and other places where a little icon is needed for your ID. So you'll even see it in your Mac in System Preferences now since iCloud will sync all of that.

You'll have two options. You can have this image and name automatically sent to anybody you're messaging with. It's in your Contacts already. Otherwise if they're not it will ask you whether or not you want to send the image and name to that person you're messaging with. If you choose the other option it will always ask you whether or not is the person in your Contacts.

If you've already been in the Messages app and you Dismissed this or you want to go back later and change things you can do that as well. You tap the three dot button at the top of the Messages app and then go to Edit Name and Photo. It takes you to this screen here. So here is what it looks like if you haven't set anything up yet. So you can go to Edit and then you get to the same screen here so you can change the photo to whatever it is you want or add animoji. On the previous screen you saw where you can set your name there as well.

Each time you go in and make a change you'll be prompted again to whether or not you want to use this photo and name everywhere. So you can always kind of reissue that across iCloud to all of your devices. If you like you can just go into the Settings app and there go to Messages. In Messages go to Share Name and Photo and you can get to all this stuff there.

Alright, so that's how you set it up. Now how does it actually work? It works when you're messaging with somebody who is also using iMessages. So it's not going to work with somebody who's using SMS because of course the mobile phone companies don't support this kind of advanced functionality with text messages. They're just simple text messages. But if you're using iMessage with anybody then you can send them your picture and name.

What does it look like in action? Well here I'm starting a new conversation with a demo account. I'm going to start the conversation here and send it to another device. Now this other device I'm going to have to not only send something but they're going to have to respond. When that happens then at the top, you can see, I get these Share your name and photo option there. There is a Share link that I can tap or an X I can tap to dismiss it.

Now it depends on whether or not you chose to automatically share with your contacts. If you did, and this is a contact that you're talking to, then you don't have to tap that Share button. But if it's not a contact and you chose to ask you every time then you have to tap that Share button to send your photo and name.

On the other end of things here's the iPad I was using as the other user. You can see here that the Photo and the Name appear but the word Maybe appears next to the name. Tap the person's icon at the top of the screen and then Info. Then it will go to this Details screen. I can then tap the person's name and I go to a screen here where it has Create New Contact. I can use Create New Contact now to make a contact with that name, their email address or phone number or whatever was used to message and, of course, it uses that photo as well. It makes it really easy to create contacts and now that Maybe is gone from the Messages app.

This is useful because it makes it easier to setup a contact with somebody when you're messaging with them. It helps to make sure that you're contacts have a good contact for you where your name is spelled right. Also it's great to be able to use animoji instead of a photo because there are a lot of us that are never really happy with the photo that we're using for our contact. And you know, it's just kind of fun.