Difference between a hardware/serial ban vs a hardware/account throttle/"spam ban"

Written by @ampersandru Last updated 2/1/2024

Figured that a lot of people are confused about whether their Mac is banned or their Apple ID is throttled.

Hardware/serial Ban

Causes:

This usually occurs if you have pulled and used a registration ID for Beeper Cloud/Mini.
Using a Hackintosh/macOS as a VM

Symptoms:

You cannot send and receive iMessages in the Messages app
When you try to create an iMessage in the Messages app, the contact (who you know has iMessage) turns green or red and it fails to send or tries to send as SMS
You try logging into a different/new Apple ID account in the Messages app and it has the same issues as above
You CAN send iMessages on another Apple device (iPad, iPhone, etc) with your Apple account

Actions:

Wait it out. People who had hardware serial bans early Jan have had theirs lifted
Calling Apple will be useless as Tech Support do not know of hardware bans or are told not to speak about it. You will spend countless hours performing useless troubleshooting steps. There were only a few reported people successful in getting engineering to unban their serial. If that chance is worth hours of customer service, go ahead and try it.
Spoof your serial number with OCLP, genSMBIOS, etc and login to your Apple ID again. iMessages should work again

Hardware/Account Throttle or Spam Ban

Causes:

Symptoms:

You can't start new iMessage threads but can still receive/send iMessages with threads and contacts that are already created
iMessage only works with some contacts, for others, it wants to send as SMS
This is the same on other Apple hardware with that same account
If you try logging in with a different/new Apple account on that Mac, iMessages works with all contacts.

Actions:

"Cleanse" your Apple account: Change your Apple ID password and select "log out of all devices." Delete all app-based passwords.
There is a theory that you can up the "trust score" of your account which might prevent future throttling/spam banning. Try adding a credit card and purchasing something cheap in the App Store. Additionally, if you have an iPhone and SIP-enabled Mac (people usually disable SIP for BlueBubbles) on the account, it will also help
Wait it out - some reports say it should lift after \~72 hrs
Chat with Apple support and state your symptoms and that you have googled the issue and noticed people stating that Apple may have accidentally spam banned you. They will likely lift your throttle/spam ban ONCE.
If your throttle/spam ban has been lifted before, they will unlikely lift it and your only option is to create a new Apple ID