I have been living with the pop-up plague of iMessage wanting me to sign in. I never have the correct password and when I try to reset it, I get the message that my account is not valid or supported. A while back I was trying to get my Apple account figured out and had success with a certain email, but the one that iMessage thinks I am using simply won’t work.

iMessage

As you can see by this screenshot, there is no option to reset your password here. To do that, you’re supposed to go to your Apple account online. To get rid of this, you’re supposed to open iMessage, and “sign out”. But I can’t sign out of something I’m not signed into; when I open the app it just spins and everything is greyed out. Apple, wtf.

account not valid or supported

Apple account not valid or supported

I recently updated my OS so that I can use the latest/greatest whatever – Microsoft Teams Meeting software wouldn’t run, Atlas wouldn’t install – I’m not even that far behind on operating systems. After the update, this pop up for iMessage became incorrigible, showing again five minutes after canceling.

Queue up Apple support chat. It’s their software, after all. iMessage is software that I personally have never used, will never use, not sure why it exists; it assumes you have an Apple phone. Apple includes it in the operating system and no, you cannot delete it. Or can you?

I was transferred to my third support rep on this conversation and I asked them if I can have some code for Terminal to be rid of this unused software. They basically told me Terminal is dangerous and you can mess up your machine. The only thing they could recommend was to file a support ticket to “unlock” my machine, which would wipe it. Wipe it? Really? They said what’s wrong, don’t you have backups? OMG the hours and days and weeks it would take to rebuild my life and workspace – no no no not on board with that at all.

During the conversation when I could tell I was getting nowhere at all, I fired up Claude. Claude had figured out my non-connecting Brother printer (it won’t run on 5G, only 2.5 – which was down -); maybe it could help me with this software. It gave me code for Terminal to block the app and its pop ups. I ran it and the popups went away. For awhile.

The next morning, the popup was back like a bad cold. I shoved it to my other monitor and went back to my conversation with Claude. Turns out I had to restart the computer for the full effect. It even said, you’ll have a fresh login and be able to add any email you want there.

True enough! I fired up iMessage just to make it go away. I used the same email I have on my Apple account and bingo! It worked.

Force quit Messages (Cmd+Option+Esc, select Messages, Force Quit) Open Terminal and run: bash killall imagent rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.imessage* rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iChat* rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.messageshelper* Restart your Mac Open Messages - it should prompt you to sign in fresh
 

Claude also provided code for Terminal to completely get rid of the app itself, something Apple told me was impossible, and all the search results you will find online will tell you the same thing. I asked them, look why can’t I control what apps exist ON MY OWN MACHINE? (Time to try Ubuntu?) It involves restarting the computer in recovery mode, entering some scripts, and restarting:

3. Remove the App (Advanced) This requires disabling System Integrity Protection (SIP), which I don’t generally recommend as it reduces your Mac’s security:

If you still want to proceed:

Restart in Recovery Mode (hold Cmd+R during boot) Open Terminal from Utilities menu Run: csrutil disable Restart normally Open Terminal and run: sudo rm -rf /Applications/Messages.app Restart in Recovery Mode again Run: csrutil enable Restart
 

So here it is for anyone who doesn’t want to ask AI themselves. I have not tried this, because I finally got the pop up to go away by actually signing in. Apple support lied to me, probably erring on the side of caution because they don’t want their customers customizing their experience through Terminal at the risk of messing up their computer.

Sorry the formatting on my ‘code block’ is run-on. Go to Claude.ai for support. I don’t guarantee this code will work for you or not mess up your machine. I just want you to know it exists.