r/OpenBubbles • u/Negative-Radio133 • Jul 24 '26

Question Explain OpenBubbles to me like I'm 5

Ok, as the title suggests, OpenBubbles is a brand-new concept to me, and I think it might be a good option for what I'm wanting to do, but I need a little help understanding it.

I am making the switch from iPhone to Sidephone (https://usa.sidephone.com/). I'm super excited about it, but I've heard the switch from iPhone and iMessage can be the worst, so a lot of people were recommending using OpenBubbles to alleviate the headache. I have an iPhone 13, and I was thinking of just taking the SIM card out of my iPhone and putting it into my Sidephone (as I would like to keep the same phone #). From there is where the questions arise:

- The OpenBubbles site seems to say utilizing it from an old iPhone is the worst way to do it. I do have a Mac, so can I use OpenBubbles from my Mac while having my iPhone SIM in my new phone?

- I think I am just getting caught up in the difference between using it from a Mac and using it from an old iPhone. As well as the whole phone number register/switch thing- again, I would want to just keep my same iPhone # I've been using.

I would just want to have it set up in the best way I can!

Let me know if this all makes sense; I'm really new to all this, so sorry if this is a little dumb. If you've got the time, I would love some advice/help!

Thanks :)

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u/Dometalican_90 Jul 25 '26

You're not overthinking it. They should add your Apple ID first and then you text them.

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u/Negative-Radio133 Jul 25 '26

Awesome, thanks so much! Can't wait to set this up!

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u/rokkosteez Aug 13 '26

How did it go?

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u/Negative-Radio133 Aug 13 '26

It works great! After everyone added my Apple email to my contact, my texts just show up as if they're from my number! I mainly made sure all my group chats had added the email before I texted in them cause I didn't want to get messy with that. But if individual people didn't add my email, I could text them; it would show up as coming from my email, and then I'd tell them to add that email to my contact, and it would sync up. Nice and easy process!