Level 1 (4 points)

Changed phone number stuck in Sign-in and Security with no way to delete

I am unable to deregister a phone number I changed with an Esim via through my carrier and its stuck in my security settings asking me to sign out of all my iMessage and FaceTime apps on all devices. I have done that, over and over. even deleted all my text messages. some are stuck in the cloud still even when I said to delete them. over 23,000 messages. when I go to deregister the phone number it gives me this error "It looks like the phone number you provided is not registered with iMessage. Please verify the number and try again." but it’s stuck in my security settings without being able remove it completely. I have tried on account.apple.com and it gives me a ? with no way to delete it. I have called Apple support several times and all I get is someone telling me that they cannot hear me and forcing me to reschedule my help. I am at my wits’ end trying to delete this old number.

Interesting enough, I was able to pull text messages from my iPhone using iMazing and it was tied to my old number still. I can't delete them, but I can transfer them out.

I have also removed advanced protection and will wait 24 hours for the apple cloud in the sky to do something about it. perhaps it was preserving data from the protection. I'm not sure, but I hope someone out there know what to do.

I am running iOS 27 on all devices now, I own a MacBook Air, iPhone 17 pro Max and an iPad Air . aAll devices do not have iMessage or any messages. the cloud says zero but when I go to turn it back on, there's 23,000 waiting to download still, and won't delete. I also have a watch that's not on my account but been messing things up too. I wiped it and removed it from my account a while ago.

-Rox

Posted on Sep 17, 2026 8:20 AM

2 replies

PreCognition

Level 6 (12,236 points)

Sep 17, 2026 12:49 PM in response to Roxasofheart

The “not registered with iMessage” error is useful here. It suggests the old number is no longer registered with iMessage, so I wouldn’t keep deleting messages or changing iCloud or Advanced Data Protection settings. Those won’t remove a phone number from your Apple Account.

Go to Settings > [your name] > Sign-In & Security and check exactly where the old number is listed.

If it appears under Two-Factor Authentication as a trusted phone number, make sure your new number is already added and verified before removing the old one. Apple requires at least one trusted phone number.

→ About trusted phone numbers and trusted devices for Apple Account - Apple Support

If the old number appears under Email & Phone Numbers instead, that’s a different issue.

Which of those two places is showing the old number? That would help narrow this down without making any more changes to your messages or iCloud data.

Roxasofheart Author

Level 1 (4 points)

Sep 17, 2026 1:23 PM in response to PreCognition

It’s only showing up in sign-in and security settings. Nowhere else. I can use the number to login to my Apple ID as well, as long as I know the password.

I thought it might be an eSIM issue as I never changed them when I changed numbers. But alas, it’s still stuck on the account. Funny thing is….. I can manually add the number back to my sign-in and security settings as if it were a new number but the same.

Originally posted at discussions.apple.com/thread/256359035