Disable iMessage/Facetime or iCloud login on iOS/iPadOS devices?

xEpicFail_O_o
New Contributor III

Is it possible to disable iMessage or FaceTime on an iOS or iPadOS device? My company is heavily regulated and since iMessage cannot be audited, we need to have this functionality disabled. In turn, is possible, we would like to disable the option to log into iCloud completely if possible. From what I've read and seen online, it is absolutely possible on MacOS but the mobile versions not so much...

 

Ideally if we can retain SMS and just disable the iMessage that would be for best.

6 REPLIES 6

Unfortunately, that would be too tedious for us to manually edit over 2000+ devices in our environment. I was hoping to be able to find a payload.

Eric_SD_Wrkr
New Contributor III

In the config profile payloads for mobile devices there is a Restrictions payload with this option: Restriction: Apps - App Usage - Some apps not allowed, Some of the native apple bundle ID's are here. https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/bundle-ids-for-native-iphone-and-ipad-apps-depece748c41/w...

In that config profile you can add the bundle ID of any apps, even apple apps and it'll make them invisible. 

Thanks Eric, unfortunately we still need to have SMS available for our mobile devices, this will work for our iPads though. Least half the answer is found.

bbot1
New Contributor

@xEpicFail_O_o  Did you ever figure this out? I want to disable iMessage only, but still allow Messages app to send SMS.

xEpicFail_O_o
New Contributor III

@bbot1  - sorry for delayed response. 

 

for iOS and iPadOS we ended up just blocking iCloud in it's entirety to prevent data exfiltration to iCloud Storage as well as iMessage. Disabling iCloud itself allowed users to continue using SMS. 

xEpicFail_O_o_0-1692712533831.png