How to receive messages from a contact on Android phone

Text messages are sent out but not received

When the Android phone is able to send out SMS text messages, but will not receive text messages from a specific contact, or list of phone numbers, the issue might be that the contacts are blocked. See below or to troubleshoot that issue.

Cannot receive text messages

Having a list of phone numbers, if not only one, from which we cannot receive text messages, it is most probably due to the fact that the phone number has been added on the block list for some reason, which might be an accidental tap on the add to block list option.

Unblock contact on Android

To check the list of blocked contacts, unblock contacts, or block them, start by opening the messaging application.

There, tap on the more option in the top right corner, and open the blocked messages menu. If you don’t have a blocked messages menu, then go to settings first from that menu, and open the blocked messages from there.

Here, in the block list, check if the contact from which it is impossible to receive messages is there.

If the contact is there, unblock it, and ask him to send you again the messages, it should now work fine.

Delete contact and recreate it

If the contact was not in the block list but still cannot send you SMS, it might be a good idea to delete it and create it again.

Start by deleting the contact in the contacts list, from the phone application, and do not forget to delete the conversation thread, by long tapping the conversation in the messaging app, and selecting the “delete thread” option.

After that, it might be a good idea to restart the Android smartphone, before recreating the contact.

Then, after the smartphone has booted up, recreate the contact in the contact list, send them an SMS, and wait for the answer.

If that didn’t work, then the issue is not on your side.

Check that your network access is properly working by trying to place a phone call, and then ask your contact to do the same.

Make sure that your contact is able to send messages to other phone numbers, and that his carrier is not blocking sending messages to your country.

It might also be the case that your contact has reached his phone spend limit, and is not able anymore to send SMS as he has no more credit.