When attempting to write a text message on my Android, I received a message that said “Invalid recipient — Unable to add this recipient. The recipient’s number is not valid.” when adding a contact to the message.
Though the phone number looked correct, the problem is often caused by spaces or invalid characters in the phone number.
Remove any hyphens, spaces or brackets from the phone number and just use all numbers to fix this problem.
You may want to open the Contacts app and correct any other contacts that have invalid characters. This is a consistent problem if you imported your contacts from another system or phone.
David says
March 20, 2019 at 3:02 pmI had this same issue. The issue ended up being where the messenger app was trying to resolve the conflict between the same contact entered on two different google accounts which were both synced with the phone. So in my setup, there were two different google accounts where I duplicate all the contacts. However during import/export from one to the other, some of the numbers got changed slightly. For example, in account #1 contact A has phone number “(xxx) xxx-xxxx”, but in account #2 contact A has phone number “(xxx)xxx-xxxx” without the space after the parenthesis. And for some reason, whenever I try to change either account to either add the space, or remove the space, it doesn’t have any effect.
So what finally worked for me is I changed my sync options on my phone to only sync to one of the accounts, then I had to manually go into the other account on the phone (after disabling sync, so it doesn’t effect the google server side), then manually deleted all contacts on the phone from that account, then initiated a re-sync for only that account. Now with only the one account synced all my contacts are now working in messenger correctly.
Brendan Nicholls says
February 24, 2019 at 3:05 pmI have a problem with 2 contacts in my phone.
I can select a contacts “Louie” from my contact list and type a text message but the minute I send the text message it converts from that contacts name “Louie” to “Anonymous”
I have deleted the contact and re added it but the same problem exists can anyone help as it is so annoying
Lucas says
October 24, 2018 at 3:56 pmFIX FOR LARGE CONTACT LISTS:
this solution may work for you. I was dismayed by the task of altering every contact individually so this worked for me:
1. Open the contacts in Microsoft Excel
To Do this we will open export them from gmail.
Under Contacts->More-> Export.
A window will pop up and click on Google CSV,
Click Export.
Now we can open the document in excel.
2. Now we will highlight all cells that have phone numbers in them.
3. Next hit ‘control+F’ to open the find and replace.
In your contact numbers you should see some irregular characters whether it is a hyphen ‘(‘ or in my case it was this character Â.
Enter that character in to the Find field, and leave the the replace field blank. Then hit replace all.
Have a look and see if this made the number field look just like a regular number with no irregular characters.. If not then replace the other characters that remain (using control f).
4. Hit Save.
5. Go back to your google contacts and this time under more, click import, then from CSV file. and select the excel document you just saved.
6. Now go to your device and under settings make sure your device contacts are synced with your google account. as soon as it has synced all of your contacts should be working.
Patrice Salazar says
March 27, 2018 at 4:55 pmIt was helpful I tryed the suggested to fix my invalid recipient issue and it works but have to individually edit each contact is freakin wack
Old person says
March 16, 2018 at 5:24 pmi dont understand how a phone company and software developer raking in $ billions upon billions can simply get away with such a fundamental flaw… ie not being able send a contact a message??? I am missing something here?
Joel says
March 7, 2018 at 6:14 pmMass contact fix that worked for me:
On Samsung:
Go to contacts>click the 3 dots at the topright>manage contacts>sync contacts>sync
Worked for me and removed all the prompts saying that the messages were going to invalid numbers. Unsure how this would work on other android phones but worked on my Samsung Galaxy S8 that did a phone changeover from iOS.
Opy says
January 18, 2018 at 1:08 pmWho designs software that tells you ‘you are wrong about your contacts’ i simply hate that. What a waist. To create something that’ll just anoy me and never be good for nothing.back of software maker.
Before i take it personal.
Jim k. says
December 10, 2017 at 9:47 pmMy solution was to go into contacts and put a 1 in front of every area code. Some of my area codes had parentheses around them but as soon as I added the 1 in front they automatically disappeared and now everything works fine. The hyphens between the numbers are fine. All’s well again.
Heidi says
December 6, 2017 at 12:02 amOk mine is a different issue. While getting used to my new phone, I tried sending a message and inadvertently typed in the letter “a” in the number section, then a number “2” which of course didn’t work. I retried and sent to the correct contact. However, now when I go to type in someone’s name starting with A, the first one on the list is “a” with “2” under it, thereafter my correct contacts are all listed. This message comes up when I click on it, but there is no way I can remove it. This solitary letter does not show in my contacts, only when I go to send a message does it appear. It’s happened elsewhere too and I don’t know how to get rid of it. I don’t understand why the phone has kept an incorrect entry.
Lofty says
November 29, 2017 at 1:35 pmI’ve just noticed this issue on my Samsung Galaxy J5 – I’ve found that is NOTHING to do with strange characters. Having got the “Invalid recipient” message when trying to send a text, I double checked the number I was attempting to text to and found it to be perfectly correct (I could call it without issue from Contacts). I restarted the phone, the problem remained. I found that by editing the contact – simply removing the very last digit, and then adding it back and saving the SAME number, the problem was resolved!
As Lexi says – unless this can be fixed on a bulk level, it’s a real PITA. Good to know it’s an easy fix, but still a real pain to have to edit each troublesome contact :-(
Darline Hart says
July 7, 2017 at 12:54 pmSo by country code does that mean for instance, the 1 in front of the 3 digit area code?
Nick Sewaney says
May 7, 2017 at 6:11 pmSolution to INVALID RECIPIENT: I had similar problem but in few days solved it. How?
All you have to do is add country code before each cellphone no. in your contact!!!! power off power on, THAT IS IT
YOUR PROBLEM IS SOLVED.
greg says
March 4, 2017 at 11:44 amthis was a frustrating message thanks for the fix.
David says
February 7, 2017 at 7:12 pmOn my phone it was because I had entered the number as a Home Phone instead of Mobile Phone in Contacts.
Benjamin says
January 11, 2017 at 8:03 amSame problem as HAL. Contacts app automatically put parenthesis in. How do you fix this?
hal says
November 30, 2016 at 1:05 pmI have edited the phone number in the contacts and the os puts in the parenthesis and hyphens
Can’t figure a way to eliminate those symbols.
Still getting the error message
Lexi says
November 2, 2016 at 2:48 amHow do you fix this on a bulk level?? Going through individually is going to be crazy
Linda Hudson says
October 30, 2016 at 12:13 pmThe name c2 show up I did not put that in. It says Invalid recipient unable to add this recipient. The recipients number is not valid. There is not a number even there. How do I get this c2 off here I didn’t put it on here?