Photos in iMessage disappeared after ios13 update

Did you get a fix for this? I have just 5 photos on one message on my iPhone but yet on my MAC all the photos are there? Lost passwords as well; still on my MAC but not on the iPhone. What a messy update.

Yea I just updated to 13.1.3 and all my photos deleted on one of my conversations and even though I can scroll up and see photos from two days ago. Apple u ppl have one job and that’s not to mess up ur costumers lives plz fix this

Hi. I understand why you’d be upset. Make sure you call Apple support and let them know about the trouble you’re having. I think if everyone reports this then possibly something can be done. I’m having similar issues as you.

The weirdest part is that this seems to be only affecting a small group of us I check my friends phones and there’s all seem to be working. Tech support is still saying that the engineers know about it but they still want more diagnostics from me and I am sick of dealing with this issue. Desperate for a workaround.

That is weird. I know it’s been over 200 people based on what’s been online. Have you tried logging out of iCloud then logging back in? I went to iCloud, toggled iMessage off, and it said something like “This iPhone isn’t finished downloaded messages. Disable and download?” I have done this several times. I toggle it off for a minute then back on. Each time it makes my app have “downloading messages from iCloud” pop up. It lasts for an hour or more, then stops, then I repeat the process. I’m not sure it’s doing anything though. Tomorrow I’m going to fully log out then log back in. When you log out it doesn’t delete data in iCloud.

downloading* I hope they find a solution for this or fix it for any further updates. I’m not sure they would for the hundreds of users affected, but it would be ethical considering the prices for their products.

It is low on the priority list because it’s not affecting most users. They should still find a solution though considering what’s paid for iCloud and the devices, regardless of if it is just a few hundred people.

I have done what you have tried 10 times and nothing happens. I get the same message that it still needs to finish downloading but then after a min it’s complete. Then it says downloading messages from iCloud but that goes for about 12 hours. The only thing i haven’t tried is logging out of iCloud as i don’t know what other damage i will do and aside from this issue that is bugging the xxxx out of me i don’t want to make things worse. Let me know not you try.

thx

With the help of a couple great Apple Support folks, we were able to get to the bottom of this. While unfortunate and a bit time consuming we were able to get to the bottom of this. Quickest thing to say is somewhere between moving to a new phone and backup restore...the photos were there but indexing was all jacked up. Before you undertake any of this, BACKUP.

This, for me, was solved by completely deleting the contents of my phone and setting up my phone as NEW. Then when I signed into my iCloud accounts all my usual stuff came back Photos, Calendar, Mail, etc... including my Message. I had A LOT of photos in my messages. This completed "downloading" on Wifi in a day. The long wait was for the "indexing" to wrap up... I mean like 3 days. But in the end it's all back and where it needed to be. Nothing was really ever lost.

Setting up my iPhone from scratch was a huge pain, but in the end probably will be good for me. Lots of apps I don't really need. I've only install apps I use/need since this episode which so far has eliminated about 100 apps from my phone. Still sucks this happened, but Support was great. I would advise anyone to actually call in if you want help resolving this. I hope this helps.

I lost any data that was in apps not cover by iCloud, Dropbox, etc. Not gonna lie... mostly just lost apps I don't use and any of their associated data. I've been rolling my backup from iPhone to iPhone for a long time.

iPhone 4 > 4S > 5 > 5S > 6 > 6S > 6S Plus > 7 Plus > X > XS > 11 Pro. Likely time for a fresh start... and yes I am a sucker for upgrading.

I pay for extra iCloud storage (it's really not that costly in the grand scheme of things). I got everything I really care about back: photos, messages, emails, calendar items. The rest was stored on other cloud services. The pain was just setting up all my services from scratch, logging in, etc. I forgot to take a screenshot of how my screens were arranged. It's funny how much muscle memory you build based on where apps land on screens. Also had to reset up my Apple Watch and Heath, but not really a big deal.

I did submit a request to Apple about a larger scale export option for photos out of Messages app. I know you can do it one by one or multiple at a time, but it would sure be nice to back it all up in one big export to a file or something.

The thing about my situation was I had 13.1.2 on my other iPhone 7 Plus and there was no problem. I didn’t have a problem until setting up my new iPhone 7 Plus it updated to 13.1.3 and when I chose to back it up from iCloud that’s when it didn’t work properly. It hasn’t indexed any older photos and still shows it is downloading from iCloud when I toggle iMessage on and off in iCloud. This is what it says at first:

This problem only started for me after I set up a new iPhone 11 Pro from scratch. I had already upgraded to iOS 13 previously. But with the new iPhone 11 Pro - a clean install - and an iOS update - problems began. Still waiting for Apple Engineering to get back to me.

Im having this same issue as well since iOS 13 and was told they will fix it with the update and nothing yet. How many people have to experience this before Apple can tell us they are at least looking into this matter.

Apparently it has to be a huge number of users for them to do anything. I pay for iCloud and see no point considering I can’t even access iMessage attachments. It never indexed them. I won’t be getting iPhones anymore after this.

I’m furious. Not only did I have thousands of photos deleted from my iMessage chats, but also years worth of text messages. Yes, I’ve had “keep messages forever” selected since the beginning. I have several devices that use the same Apple account, and after a recent update, all of these messages & more have disappeared completely. If I scroll through the message chain, messages before random dates are gone. I would like to know what the **** happened to iMessages with my family that have been on my devices dating back to 2011 & now they won’t even go back past 2018. Some stop in 2019. I can’t even begin to explain how incredibly amazed I am that Apple put out a software update that erased my messages, photos, & more. If I don’t get them back, they may have just permanently lost an Apple user forever. I didn’t stick with Apple all of these years to have my data be lost. Better yet, one of my other devices has messages from earlier in the message chain, but has significant gaps or “time jumps” to later in the message chain. Infuriated doesn’t come close to describing the level of anger in feeling.