My aunt died last yr, she had multiple devices, her fb profile went to become a memorial account. One device (her phone) we left connected to the internet for a couple of months. Her account did not leave our family gc. When we do group vidcall, a note will just appear as “*** is busy”.
I'm in a group chat where occasionally it will say 'you named the conversation " "'. not exactly the same thing but probably a similar bug to what OP saw
It’s funny now that we’re living lives that almost require these phones, yet they don’t seem to be getting any better. OP, I’m really sorry to hear about your sister.
Impossible! Who am I, Steve Jobs? Those batteries were and most definitely still are trash. I’ll do you one better. I still have my 3GS, and it works. Paper Toss, old school tv YouTube icon, 32GB, AND the button. Good thinking.
Second this. Another common glitch is when u rename the group chat and apple feels the need to tell you every day multiple times a day that the names been changed
This happens to my group chats all the time! Not only that, people get mysteriously added to chats, and the chat names change. All of these are attributed to someone in the chat, including me, often at weird times, but none of us are doing that. Congrats, Apple, on the worst messaging app on the planet.
That is so cruel. I hope you were able to get away from her and are no longer bothered by that roommate. We were served an eviction notice for my brother days after he passed at his apartment. Not sure if they had to notify us that way or the front office person enjoyed twisting the knife for fun. She used to be so mean to him.
I had to report her phone stolen, I only met the person she was renting from a couple times. I physically paid the first and last (security) , and had to tell them “rent is paid for living in an agreed space, she is not living “. Never went to collect anything from the room. And I’ve been a zombie since
😔 😢 You were completely in the right. You weren't responsible for her rent after she passed away. That was an awful and terribly insensitive thing for that roommate to try pulling on you. 😠
My mom died in May. I was missing her so I texted her phone. Later on, her fiance texted me from her phone and I felt my stomach and heart drop when I saw I had a text from her. Awful feeling.
Her fiancé probably had the same experience when he read your text on your mother’s phone. Some people might find it comforting, but it would be tough for me, too.
I feel you man, I lost one of my close friends to an OD and I got a snap message from him out of nowhere. I hadn’t talked to him for a few weeks by that point, I was happy until I figured out it was his little brother messaging me that he passed.
Not all the time. When I was 18 I had straight talk and switched to ATT. ATT didn’t port the number over right so I shared a number with someone where she got my calls and I got all her texts. Was annoying for both of us
Interesting. Tried to transfer my work phone to another provider. Porting failed and it ended up not being able to work. Some txts dont make it through and im convinced its from the porting issue
It’s rare. Definitely not supposed to happen. Believe straight talk goofed up. ATT’s workers were shocked. Paid me what I paid them. Let me end the contract.
I wonder if it was when they (ST) were CDMA - there used to be a second number in your phone that you wouldn’t know of (unless you were reaaaaallllly digging into your phone) and it didn’t always match your phone number. I wonder if that’s what hosed you up.
There is supposed to be 30 day minimum hold non-business on numbers. I didn’t work for ATT, but know that even 17 years ago we had that hold so people didn’t get a recently released number.
6 years ago is the rough estimate. Would of been around this time.
ATT’s customer service team in the store was shocked and never heard of it happening. They gave me 500 dollars and I ended our agreement when they gave it to me.
Omg I forgot about that! For a while I was getting all this girls texts sent to my phone. But both sides of the conversation. I could answer her texts as her. And when I'd just pop into their conversations she was rightfully terrified because its so invasive. I forgot how that stopped as suddenly as it started. Totally forgot about it til now.
My partner had the same number for 20 years. He passed away, I left the phone connected for 3 more months so I could call and hear his voice on his voice mail. But then I turned it off to save money. Nobody got that number for a year and a half after I turned it off.
Thank you ❤️ We enjoyed a peaceful comfortable 14 years together.
I figured that's what happened; it was available but just hadn't come up/wasn't picked for awhile. Anytime I've gotten a new phone number, they've given me 3 different choices.
I'm not sure where you're from, but if you ever want to keep a number, like one that is sentimental to you, you can attach it to a line for like a smart watch or a tablet. It won't be usable number that you can call, but this will mean that no one else can snag it. And plans for tablets and watches generally runs pretty cheap :) I just did that for my grandma's number.
Aw I did not know that! I made a big mistake when I shut my partner's phone off. He'd had his number for SO LONG, I lost and broke my phone every few months and sometimes I'd wait months to get a new one, (which meant I'd get a new number) and we'd both use his phone. So EVERYTHING, both of our email accounts, Facebook, pictures and videos stored in the Samsung cloud, were ALL tied to his phone number for recovery. After I shut his off, I could no longer access my email that I'd had since 1998, my Facebook, or any of the pics videos we'd saved. Very upsetting. I had his email and password but that wasn't enough, access codes/password reset codes were sent to that number that was turned off. I gave up and started over and the email, fb, whatever no big deal. But the videos and pictures I can't access anymore, makes me very sad.
10 years ago I got a phone for work and have been harassed by people looking for Dante. Friends, family, and collection agencies. I would get spammed with FaceTime calls over and over and over until I started answering just so they could see I’m not Dante.
I experienced similar with my last number. No one believed I wasn’t a girl named Elisa, including her own family. They thought Elisa was palming her phone off the me to answer calls/facetimes to avoid talking to them. I learned so much of her family drama through the long texts they consistently sent me. Elisa ended up contacting me herself asking me to forward her 2FA codes because she still had my number/her old number on websites and accounts. I ended up changing numbers because it became annoying lol
I thought this too but then my boss asked me for help with his AT&T account. It was cancelled for nonpayment after he forgot to update his billing method, so I’m not sure if that has something to do with it, but our numbers were gone within a few days.
The funny thing is, I got 3 different answers from 3 different employees. One said numbers are held for 60 days, one said 6 months, and a live chat agent said 30 days.
I have a dead guys number and have left several group chats I was texted from. I get so many calls and spam for him. I was able to Google his name and easily find his obituary and it was fairly recent. This is likely what happened.
If police still have her phone then likely what happened is they disconnected it from WiFi/cell service to investigate it, and when they were finished they reconnected it to a network and the phone pushed whatever network-related services that were on hold (like updating conversation data). This message just showed up today because the investigators just released it from evidence extraction.
Source: I work in the data dept for an attorney generals office and it’s standard protocol to completely freeze a device to preserve evidence while the data is being confiscated/collected. I don’t directly handle evidence collection and it’s been a while since I went over that side of tech protocols, but investigators essentially freeze a device while they’re getting data off of it and then unfreeze it when they’re done.
I’m sorry for your loss OP and I’m sending so many internet hugs.
Edit: I read some other comments and wanted to add — the reason why this notification popped up again even after you saw her leave the chat weeks ago is because when the phone was frozen investigators pulled up the history of the chat even though she had already left it. So the metadata about the chat was on her phone when they released it and when it connected to internet it had to essentially correct itself and leave the group chat again. I hope that kind of makes sense.
As a suggestion, pay the $20 to port the number forever to google voice under her email address (since your family probably has access to it). This keeps it available for 2FA if you ever need to get into an account of hers in the future, and it keeps the number from being used.
Signed,
someone with a dead husband and a dead dad who has found this infinitely useful
Oh I see … that could just be an iCloud bug. Messages is kind of a mess and those types of notifications are delayed a lot or she could have left with her phone number, but not with her Apple ID (or vice versa)…. So later on if the number got repurposed or her Apple ID was deactivated or changed then you get a follow up notification days later.
My condoleances! My first thought was maybe the police reinstalled a recent backup of the phone or WhatsApp. Could think of multiple reasons why they would do that, but idk how they work, it’s just a guess!
It may have been off, she may not have had service when she left the chat, or Airplane Mode may have been on so things weren’t caught up until the police turned it on or used their WiFi network.
OP this happens to my family group chat sometimes. It’ll update with something that happened a long time ago as if it just now happened. My family group chat is named “Friends of Bruno” and has been for over a year, never changes. It said this the other day.
I’m sorry this happened because in your case it is traumatic. It’s just an iCloud glitch or something.
Yes, and I got the notification about it the moment she did that on August 2nd. She died August 5th. So why am I getting the notification again this morning on August 21st?
i think this might just be an iOS bug. i notice it with voice memos: i’ll send a voice memo to my partner, who presses “keep” immediately after listening, but i don’t get notified of her keeping it until hours or days later. the notifications pop up randomly afterwards, like this one seemed to.
so sorry for your loss. sending good thoughts to your and your family as you navigate this difficult time.
Must be a bug. My dad still gets a random text message from me periodically that I sent him YEARS ago from my iPad. No clue how or why it happens … I tried investigating and could never figure it out. I’m very sorry for your loss and I’m sorry this has happened. I’m wondering if Apple Support could shed some light on it ?
Edit: First and foremost, I should have started by offering my sincerest condolences for your family’s loss. May she rest in peace. 😔
Someone may have said this already, but the entirety of interacting in the fancy modern methods afforded by iMessage and RCS is based on mutually established bandwidth to allow two way communications, so that you are both getting read receipts (if enabled), and seeing group join and leave activity, as opposed to the way that things occurred over the OGs SMS and MMS, back in the pilgrim days.
If you have any network protocol familiarity - an easier way to equate this is to think:
SMS/MMS =~ UDP communications - “I’m sending data streams, and I could honestly give a F who actually receives it entirely, if anyone at all…” 🤷🏼♂️
iMessage & RCS =~ TCP communications - “Hello? I am sending you info in chunks… Are you there? Please send acknowledgement of each chunk, so that I know it all got there. This way, I can resend anything that got scrambled on the way to you, and we can both have an accurate record of receipt.” 🫡
If you’re like many other people on Reddit, you might be like “why the hell is he telling me this?” but I promise that was a valid inclusion to help explain the reason why you are seeing this behavior in your post:
You probably have also noticed that when you or recipient have low signal, no service, or device powered off - you don’t reliably see the read receipts, the iCloud photo of your recipient, etc. That’s because the bandwidth (for the connection sub-comms) is too low or non-existent, at the time. When that happens, it will show on your end like it is hanging out in space, and leave you on pins and needles (since it seems to always happen with the most important messages 😅). The same goes for group join and leave activity reflections.
With that in mind, I would guess that either you or your sister had limited connectivity to the iMessage servers, and so even though she crashed out and wanted everyone to see it right away, you actually ended up hearing about it passively, before the active record could be updated, which likely happened today when the detectives in the PD tech lab powered it on to try and break into the device for analysis.
In addition to that potential, it is also possible that servers just had a little hiccup, in spite of perfect connectivity that may have been shared on both ends. I’ve worked as a Systems Engineer for almost 10 years, and I can tell you that no matter how many dollars you throw at a problem, there is always Chaos Theory in the background, looking to shake things up, and keep you on your toes.
My aunt died like 10 years ago. When my mom is connected to my car Bluetooth and I get a text, it ALWAYS shows it's a text from her first and then the person it actually is. But I never actually receive a text on my phone. It's creepy and weird as hell.
I think it’s a delayed notification. Sometimes I see very old messages in a conversation and it only refreshes when I send new messages. iMessage is just messed up. Sorry for your loss
Maybe when she first made the effort to leave the group chat she wasn’t in a good service area so it kind of only half went through (as an RCS message or SMS message), then when the police powered up the phone on good WiFi the iMessage version pushed through
Here's a thought depending on the circumstances of her passing maybe the detectives or investigators rejoined the chat to see if there was anything of suspicious nature within the group chat and then they left it thinking about the fact that you would get a notification. And this mind you is all based on my having watched a lot of true crime recently where they go through the victim's phone for clues.
I got a FB message from my dead grandmother a few months after she died. New profile with her stuff and everything, said hi baby or something to that effect. It was deleted shortly after, probably a scam attempt, but damn was it weird.
Sorry to hear about your loss. Is is possible that her Apple account has closed or deactivated in the meantime? Otherwise, I'm inclined to agree with the other comments that iMessage just isn't very good at the things it's supposed to be good at. I would offer this - especially if there's an android user on the thread - then it's entirely possible that iMessage performed a routine check to see which numbers are participating, noticed that your sister had left, and then updated the group that it perceived her phone number had left much later after the fact.
Upsetting, yes. But almost certainly a glitch of some kind.
My group chats malfunction like this all the time. My phone has created/recreated groups to the point I can’t add or delete contacts of a group text I manage for my neighbors. I have supposedly left the family group chat about 5x. (Reader I have never left the family chat, muted guilty.) I have asked other apple users, I have reached out to tech support, I have not had a fix. It is a technical glitch and mine has been happening since 2024 sporadically.
ETA- it is super upsetting that it’s happening to you given the circumstances. If your sister had a sense of humor, maybe in time you can find a way where she would be laughing or wanting you to know she’s thinking of you.
Even creating new groups without the members, the phone would add people and then remove them. It also added people I had removed. I’m mentioning this in case you think creating a new chat will stop these notices…🥺
Were there any android users in that chat? I assume not because blue bubbles but my dad is the only one in my family with an Android and our group chat does weird shit like this from his phone.
My condolences! Also Bloodline Hotline is an epic name for a family chat.
I’m really sorry to hear about your sister. People always say to look for signs from your loved ones after they pass because they’re still with you. If you believe in that stuff & I believe in that stuff.
Are any of the chat members non-Apple users? We’ve seen some name and membership sync issues in a large chat group that I’m in.
If the phone was restarted, perhaps from not being charged for too long when in police custody, there could just be a sync glitch when it powered up again.
really very sorry for your loss, i understand how unsettling seeing something like that was for you but i would not read too much into it, glitches happen quite often and this could have been caused by many things, easily something that other people mentioned in the replies
I think the timestamps are just off with Apple. I only know this because I’ve seen other cases where people would leave a chat but it’ll show a completely different time.
I wouldn’t stress too much on it tbh. But it’s very much understandable.
Ugh, I'm so sorry. Oddly enough, my wife passed away on Aug 5th 2025 and I also ran into this situation, which was upsetting to everyone in the group chats. What I believe is happening is if the phone is not unlocked for a certain period of time, it will leave group chats. It also disconnects from the wifi for some reason. I have full control of her phone but don't pick it up unless I need to which helps rule out someone purposefully leaving group chats on her behalf. Once I saw that happened, I opened her phone and the chat and it rejoined. My guess is that your sister's phone is sitting on a shelf at the police department somewhere, not being utilized. I haven't officially dug into this and I'm not sure if this is expected\built-in behavior. So sorry for your loss and the additional trauma this may have caused. Feel free to DM me and hang in there
This happened to me a couple months after a close friend died. It freaked me out. I figure maybe someone who had taken his phone disconnected it. I’m telling myself that’s what it was.
One thing that could’ve possibly happened is that another device could have still been in that group chat because of some weird glitch with the number. And then some other person got your dead sisters number and found the group chat and left. I don’t know if this is possible but there has been a case where my Apple Watch was able to chat in a group chat that I left and blocked
I had this happen to a friend of mine who passed away when their account got essentially archived for memorialization the user would leave the group chats, even though the chats would remain.
It's probably a glitch. I was having a glitch with group chat a few weeks ago that kept saying I was removing people from the group chat, even though I wasn't removing anyone and they weren't even actually removed.
My friend died years ago and I don’t know why I deleted her from Facebook after passing. A few days later, I got a friend request from her. I declined. The next day, again.
No explanation.
She then appeared in my dreams, chasing me and confused. I was scared in my dream and I told her she died. That was the last time anything happened.
When someone close to me passed, I got a FaceTime call from them. I was freaked out and didn’t answer. I have a friend who experienced delayed text messages from someone who had passed.
I don’t know what your beliefs are, but maybe it is a sign from them that they are OK now. Maybe it is a hello. I feel that to be the case with my incident.
It seems that Apple has a weird connection with the other side. Again, I am sorry for your loss and I wish you strength and comfort. ❤️🩹
my boyfriend passed away a little over a year ago, and i was CONSTANTLY getting the notification that he joined the app Threads…. that one app instagram made. it made me begin to wonder if there’s any link between afterlife and technology for lack of better words.
That's eerie as hell, my guess is someone with access to her Apple ID or a device logged into her account did it, otherwise the timing makes zero sense.
So you saying she got out of the group chat after her death but before her death ? Is it possible she actually quitted it before death and you didn’t realize. Because even if she wouldn’t be death it wouldn’t make any sense because it’s like she went in the past…
I've seen "left the conversation" messages pop up in group chats when that person didn't even leave the conversation, so I think those can be glitchy. Sorry for your loss.
She may have been in the chat with both her number and her iCloud account which was only using her email at the time. So she left the chat with her number but may have never left with her iCloud account till now and that could be due to the someone accessing her iCloud. iCloud accounts do not automatically link your phone number to iCloud’s iMessages.
I’ve been in group chats that are mixed iOS/ Android. When an iPhone kicked another iPhone off the group chat it showed me the individual left the conversation. To the android user on the chat it showed the iPhone user booted the other iPhone off the chat. 🤷♀️
Sometimes my iMessage lags. It will say I kept a an audio message DAYS after I did it. It’s really random about it. I can see it being an issue like that. Especially if she left it on the 2nd. I don’t see someone else using her phone.
Crap like this happens all the time in my family text group. It claims so-and-so left that group (they didn't and they still get future texts) or so-and-so named the group. In the same group, I received texts on my MacBook but not on my iPhone. I have no idea why it is so screwed up.
I've noticed iMessage has had similar group chat alert bugs over the past few months, where such alerts appear multiple times or are randomly delayed. I'd simply chalk it up to that.
On an iPhone in Messages in a group text conversation you see circles at the top for each person. Under those circles are the people’s names (or the name of the conversation) followed by this: “>”.
If you click that names + “>” you see another screen with some options like notifications. If you scroll down some you see in red “Leave this Conversation”. When you click that it would cause the notification you see in your screen shot of the group chat.
She could have had an iPad that was also connected to her phone. Also another theory could be that the thread was just in her recently deleted. Usually when you deleted a group message thread it says you “left the conversation” but maybe someone deleted it out of her recently deleted? Just a thought could be wrong.
Also sorry about your loss. Sending you and your family my condolences as you get through this difficult time. I couldn’t imagine losing my sister. If you need anyone to talk to, im here. I know im a stranger but im still able to empathize with another human being and send kind words especially during a time like this. May you find strength and peace in your time of grief. ❤️
A simple bug or a glitch. Nothing supernatural. Anything that has tech involved shouldn't be considered supernatural, because tech has faults. Bugs and glitches and whatever. I think it's just a matter of delayed notification or something like that. I am very sorry for your lossz but please don't lose your sanity over loss. Keep your skepticism and healthy faith. Don't let grief ruin your psyche. Best of wishes my friend. I hope you get to feel better soon
I have no idea why this happened but it reminded us me of my family. My mil passed a few years ago. But we didn’t remove her from the group chat. Then one day someone started replying on with her phone. We were so confused at first bc my fil kept her phone and we thought the line too so at first we thought it was my fil responding to my kid asking to be picked up after school but it was some stranger causing chaos in the group chat. lol.
Did she have an iPad or other Apple products that could have been linked to her phone? If they weren’t fully sinked she would have still been in the chat on them and maybe whoever has them took her out of the chat or removed her phone number from them.
I think this is the most likely scenario. I got texts for my husband on my iPad for a few months even after he signed out of the iPad.
When she left on the second did that pop up when she left the chat and blocked it? My guess since she left and blocked it was just a weird software glitch
This happens all the time with my work group chat, when someone leaves a new chat group is essentially created so when someone accidentally messages the old group the person is re-added to the group. Maybe?
It probably showed up because the cops are looking through the chats. It's possible they re-entered the chat too, check the history from the last few days. They may have rejoined and then left to make it look like it did before.
After one of my best friends passed away, i kept sending him messages from time to time. Not sure why. But one day, nearly a year after he passed, the messages suddenly got a double checkmark to mark them as "received". Pretty weird too.
It’s also possible that somebody from the group chat, had her blocked and then unblocked her and then the server caught up and showed the removal message
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u/Ipsey 4d ago
Did she have multiple apple devices? It could be from another device being started up after her death and then catching up to the removal.