How to Create or Edit Your iMessage Profile

Let people see who you are by choosing a name and profile picture to use with iMessage—you can even use a Memoji.

iMessage is a flagship iPhone feature that makes Android users jealous. If you’ve just switched to iOS, one of the first things you will be interested in is iMessage, Apple’s proprietary messaging app. And if you’re an ardent iOS user, you can also spice things up further by customizing your iMessage profile.

Here’s how to create and edit your iMessage profile.

How to Create Your iMessage Profile for the First Time

Assuming you have iMessage up and running, you can choose how your profile looks to your contacts. If not, check out our guide on how to activate iMessage. Once you have the feature enabled, you should go ahead and create your iMessage profile. If you already have an iMessage profile and want to customize it, skip to the next section.

Follow these steps to create your iMessage profile:

Launch the Messages app on your iPhone. Tap Edit on the upper left. This will reveal a three-menu pop-up on the upper left.

Select Edit Name and Photo.

If you haven’t created a Memoji, iMessage will take you to a page where you can create one. To create your Memoji, tap Get Started > Get Started.

Next, select your Memoji’s skin. You can customize your Memoji’s skin tone, freckles, and cheeks. Once done, you can change other features of your Memoji, including the hairstyle, eyes, nose, brows, head, mouth, and so on. When you’re done, tap Done at the upper right to finish.

Read More: How to Create and Use Memoji on Your iPhone

Then press Choose Name and Photo.

Choose a photo that will be beamed to your contacts under Choose Your Photo to Share page. This feature lets you set your favorite name and photo that other iMessage contacts can use if they want to.

While this gives you a chance to customize how your profile appears to your iMessage contacts, it’s also convenient as you don’t need to save other contacts anymore. You can just use the name and photo they set up in their own iMessage account.

Tap the three-dot menu to reveal more options.

To set a photo from your Albums as your iMessage picture, tap the image icon. You can also take an instant picture to share by pressing the camera icon. iMessage also allows you to use an emoji as a display photo—tap the emoji icon to select it.

A custom Memoji seems more fun, however, so let’s use that. Select your custom Memoji under Memoji.

Select the Memoji impression and tap Next on the upper right. iMessage places the Memoji at the center, but you can move and scale it to suit your preferences if you must.

Tap Choose when you’re done.

Next, select an appropriate background on the next page and tap Done.

Hit Done again, then select Continue to finish.

iMessage will prompt you, “Use This Photo Everywhere?” Tap Use. In iOS 14 and later, you can choose to share your name and photo automatically with contacts. If you’re okay with that, tap Contacts Only. Select Always Ask so you can be prompted before the two are shared (you can still change this setting later).

Tap Done to finish the setup.

How to Edit Your iMessage Profile

Setting up your iMessage profile for the first time is a bit tedious than when you want to customize it later.

Follow these steps to customize your iMessage profile:

1. Launch Messages.
2. Tap Edit atop the iMessage app.
3. Select Edit Name and Photo. This will take you directly to a page where you can customize your iMessage display photo and name.
4. Tap Edit below your iMessage profile photo. You’ll have various options to choose from—you can use one of your photos, your Memoji, and even your initials. You can even set an emoji as your display photo by tapping the emoji icon.
5. Press your preferred option and follow the prompts.
6. Once you’re done, tap Done on the top right.

Customize Your iMessage Profile

iMessage is a must-have feature if you use an iPhone. It’s feature-rich and makes messaging a fun experience. Customizing your iMessage profile with a custom name and photo can help spice things up even more.

For an even better experience, you should also incorporate sticker packs in iMessage.

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