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Photos in iMessage disappeared after ios13 update

After updating to iOS 13, all photos previously sent and received through iMessage are gone. Has anyone else encountered this issue and found a solution?

iPhone XS

Posted on Sep 19, 2019 2:30 PM

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Question marked as Apple recommended

Just a suggestion which you may have already tried, but on my phone if I click on the info icon at the top and scroll to the bottom it says x number of images in iCloud and there is an option to download them. Hope this helps

Posted on Sep 20, 2019 7:39 AM

485 replies

Dec 23, 2020 5:01 PM in response to Tayrob

Hi Everyone-


I'm literally in shock right now because I've fixed this problem on my iPhone 11 (running iOS14.3). I have struggled with this (talked to Apple senior tech support/forwarding the issue to engineers, etc.) since updating to iOS13 and have stalked this forum as well as the internet in general to find a fix. Nothing that anyone has posted here has worked for me (even getting a new phone and setting it up as new) and I've really sort of accepted that I'll never get those photos back into "info" where I can easily access them. Anyway, I literally just happy cried and here's the fix that worked for me. It's super simple and I've done many variations of this over the past year but nothing has worked... this time with this combination of actions, it worked. I'll try to include everything, even things that may not have helped. Also, I have an iPhone 11.


  1. Update my Mac to Catalina (no idea if this mattered, but it may have)
  2. Update my phone to iOS 14.3
  3. Go into Settings - iCloud - Messages - TOGGLE OFF (you'll get that annoying message about disabling and downloading that never actually works, click Disable and Download)
  4. Hard reset phone (hold down power + volume up, when settings appear, hold down the X for 30 seconds)
  5. Power off phone (hold down power + volume up, slide to power off phone)
  6. Power phone on
  7. Go into Settings - iCloud - Messages - TOGGLE ON
  8. CHECK YOUR INFO SECTIONS (mine were there immediately, didn't have to wait)


I did all of this while my phone was plugged into my computer via USB. I know this sounds incredible basic, but I've never turned the phone off/done a hard reset between toggling the Messages "OFF" then "ON" in iCloud so maybe that made the difference? Anyway, I really hope this works for someone else because I've been on this board for over a year at this point and if someone else can benefit from this, it would make me so happy!

Photos in iMessage disappeared after ios13 update

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