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.
Patrice Salazar says
It 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
i 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
Mass 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
Who 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
My 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
Ok 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
I’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
So by country code does that mean for instance, the 1 in front of the 3 digit area code?
Nick Sewaney says
Solution 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
this was a frustrating message thanks for the fix.
David says
On my phone it was because I had entered the number as a Home Phone instead of Mobile Phone in Contacts.
Benjamin says
Same problem as HAL. Contacts app automatically put parenthesis in. How do you fix this?
hal says
I 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
How do you fix this on a bulk level?? Going through individually is going to be crazy
Linda Hudson says
The 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?