Photos in iMessage disappeared after ios13 update

How about a way to permanently download all text attachments in all threads, rather than one thread at a time?

I don't get why Apple likes taking stuff away anyways. Like, if we want it gone, we can get rid of it ourselves. You should have to opt in on having your stuff taken away.

Hi The1nef, So basically my background story....I did the update back in september and noticed afterwards pictures in my text message history were gone. I did the get the "indexing" on the bottom of my messages but it never indexed them all still missing alot of pictures in my messages. I let months go by and finally sat night decided to see if I can fix it, not sure if it matters but I did update since this happend to 13.3.1 and currently running 13.3.1 now. So it started bugging me about my lost photos so I googled solution and this thread came up and I followed your steps:

System restore on computer through itunes which I did, backed up all my stuff to cloud and a computer back up. Restored. Took about 4 hours. Backed up all my stuff , let my phone sit all day on AC charge but still never got the "indexing" and the missing pics still never showed up :( , Pretty sure I followed all the steps correctly...What do you think it could be?

I had to have my phone replaced the other day and once I restored from backup they all disappeared. I’ve tried every suggestion on here. Last night I reset my phone to factory settings and restored from the last backup of my other phone, and still nothing. It’s so frustrating.

Is the issue still present with IOS 13.4? I opened two tickets with apple over the last few months and they just eventually stop calling back. I hope they fix by 14.0. I know the info is still in the cloud as I can access on my older devices that are not on ios 13 or any variation of that.

I’ve tried everything and the only thing that finally worked was erasing my entire phone. I restored it to factory settings, but set it up as a new phone. I tried many times to erase it and restore from back up and that messed it up every time. It’s kind of a pain setting up as a new phone, but it’s the one and only thing that worked for me. You just need to sign into your iCloud and everything will come back. You’ll have to manually add your apps, but I just screenshot each screen and added back the ones that I frequently use. I actually got rid of a ton of them. Hoping that in the future they’ll fix this bug because it seems to be an obvious problem. I did get this suggestion from someone else on this thread but can’t remember who, so I certainly can’t take all the credit. I believe it was the only it her person that suggested this before myself, so give them props if you can. :)

I have over 30 hrs support. Nothing has worked. I check this frequently to see it anything helps. Very disappointed.

does anyone recommend the newest update and then try total restore and set up as a new phone? Desperate since November 2019

My iOS software on my iphone recently got corrupted and my phone was stuck in boot loop with the apple logo being continuously displayed. Had everything backed up to the cloud so it was not a problem. Did a restore via iTunes and had to wipe my phone clean and reinstall iOS 13.3 (at the time). When the phone finally booted, it still didn't recover all my photos in iMessage. I've since updated to iOS 13.4 and as of right now, it only states "More photos will be shown once Messages finishes indexing". Not certain how long it takes to index but thus far (that is, after more than 2 days), I've only seen two photos appear; nothing else...

I'm still in a mess 3 months later and no o e can help - its a nightmare - most messages gone and no attachments - such a mess - resetting to new device - 25 times still does - nothing changed Networks - 27 id case numbers - nothing

Same here. Have tons of photos and gifs and stuff In messages and it’s ALL missing. And apparently Apple didn’t do **** about it.

There is no ‘download from cloud’ link or anything for me. Just blank space with nothing there where I used to have pages of pics.

thanks for nothing Apple

I have the same problem. I just notice because I need to check on a Photo in my messages. All gone. Checked icloud and not even there. Mine has automatic backup to iCloud but seems that it wasn't. Last back up date was Aug 7, 2019. Crazy!

I have tried EVERYTHING. Still unable to get this fixed. I also updated my iphone 7 to the same software and all of the pictures were initially missing but came back overnight. With my iphone 11, the pictures do show on the text thread but only photos within the last ~30 days show in my "info" tab. I have reset my phone 4 times and nothing has worked.

Has anyone confirmed that its the iOS update and not the phones themselves? Weird that I dont have the issue with my iphone 7, just my iphone 11 and both have been updated to the latest software.

NOTHING has worked, I have done everything you listed and every advice in this thread!

Its a KNOWN issue in APPLE you will just be told its not and not that many people affected.

IT has to do with indexing and I speak to someone every other week since NOVEMBER. I use this for quick look up for a huge client list to pull a screen shot by text and NOW that is gone! I can't scroll through hundreds of texts to find it either ......MY advice is keep your apple case OPEN and keep calling. THE ONLY WAY apple will do something is if enough people will not stop calling. I am so mad that if i was going to lose all this - I would have just gotten an android in their change over - in my book, apple is LYING. The only way they will ever do anything is to keep their tech support so busy that tech support puts a demand on the engineers : ( sad but true

I actually got through to Apple on Thursday and they submitted a ticket to engineering. They called me back today with an update and told me this is a known issue, they have had a lot of complaints, and they are working on a fix. So, it sounds like our efforts may be working!! They did not have a timeline, but said it’s being worked on and may come through as a software update or they may just be able to fix it without a software update (not sure how they do it, but he said if that’s the case they'd all just reappear on my phone).

Exactly the same script I was told back in February... still no substance. I've tried so many things, all from this thread since Apple doesn't seem to want to help. When I got off the phone with the advisor person I felt like they were seriously working on a solution and did give a ****. Now I've just given up. I hope they fix it, I miss having my stuff where I left it before the upgrade, but they don't seem to care.

Sad to hear that. I had a pretty good experience, much better than my efforts when I called Verizon. Verizon just kept hanging up on me. The guy at Apple gave me an email and a phone number to reach him, which I’ve never had someone do that before from a call center. He said if I have any further issues he’s assigned to my case so I can reach him directly. Obviously doesn’t fix my issue, but was nice to feel like someone cared.