Photos in iMessage disappeared after ios13 update

You don’t lose data. You back up first. And quiet frankly it isn’t hard to transfer data from an Apple device to an android device. So go ahead and switch from iOS. But the customer service with Apple is actually amazing. Go to android and you’ll have worse problems just saying. No need to be hasty

Well for me all of my data is in iCloud, not on a computer. There’s 166GB on iCloud which I didn’t even have on my computer (which is why I didn’t back it up to a computer, I’ve always used iCloud with my iPhones and it worked until now). The problem is my phone won’t sync properly with iCloud or index.

The data is still in the cloud. It hasn’t gone anywhere. Check your iCloud storage. If the size matches what you think it should be then it’s there.

A test you can do is try do a search in messages for a word you know will find and click “see more” you should be able to see conversation dating years back. Click a result and scroll around and see if you can see attachments in the message thread.

I think something is just not playing right. Being negative and freaking out isn’t going to get us anywhere.

Once we have a fix I suggest you go make a iTunes backup somewhere and keep it. You never know when it will come in handy. As I mentioned before, messages in ICloud does NOT back up your messages. It simply keeps them centralized in the cloud. One wrong swipe and the message will be deleted along with attachments. Messages are not stored in your iCloud backup when ICloud Messages are enabled.

If you have not opened a ticket for this yet please call Apple support, escalate to a senior advisor and get a case opened as level 1 will not be able to resolve this for you.

The more attention we bring to this the better.

On the cloud it says I have 87 GB in the iMessage portion. But on my iPhone storage I only have 30 something of GB in iMessage (it says). BUT my iPhone storage has been bonkers, and jumps up and down. One day it said I was running out of storage, yesterday it said I only had 26 GB of my storage used (which is false, I have more than that in photos and videos alone) then it jumped to saying I had 170 GB used later that day. It is just not reflecting things properly. I toggle the iMessage in iCloud on and off and “This phone hasn’t finished downloading messages from iCloud. Disable and download messages” pops up every time. After I toggle it off and then back on my iMessage app says “downloading messages from iCloud” but this can go on for 10+ hours and even after long periods of time it shows NO change in my iMessage storage on my iPhone storage part of my phone yet the cloud still shows the same amount of GB. I don’t know anymore. I’ve talked to 3 senior advisors and sent off analytics data to engineering and will be hearing back. Not too positive anything will come of it though. This issue only happened when I set up a new iPhone 7 Plus.

I had the same problem, though I think it actually happened before my update to 13.2. It seemed to have something to do with iCloud automatically managing my storage space - removing photos from the info part of iMessage to save space on my iPhone. I have now managed to retrieve photos, but only by going through the conversation (a long one over several years with many sent and received photos) and tapping on each grey xy.jpg to individually download them. The photos then also appear under Info again. At some point iMessage was disabled in iCloud(have no idea how), which is why I couldn't initially download pictures from the conversation. Once I worked that out and reactivated storage in the cloud, I was able to retrieve my pictures - albeit in a very lond-winded way.

Update:

I now see a message under the info pane of contacts that says “shares links photos and more will be shown when messages finishes indexing”.

This is the first time seeing this since I updated to 13. The way I got here is I did a backup and did a full System Restore on 13.2. Originally I did only a OTA upgrade.

This is worth a shot. Backup and do a restore on iTunes. When the phone comes back, login to iCloud and restore from your iCloud backup and don’t touch anything. Don’t click “download” on the Info tab, don’t reboot. just let it restore and keep it connected to power source overnight on wifi. I had checked last night but there were no attachments at all and no indexing message. When I woke up I saw 2 images in one info pane and a message about indexing on all threads.

I guess I will just leave it and see over the next few days. Maybe worth a shot?

Hi,

I am happy to report that it seems my photos are now showing up.

This is the fix:

1) backup to iCloud

2) connect phone to computer

3) create iTunes backup (if you wish)

4) restore iPhone software (this will wipe the OS and completely reinstall 13.2)

5) go through initial setup and restore from iCloud backup.

6) let the phone do it’s thing and make sure you’re Connected to power and leave it.

7) after 24 hours I still did have have all my pictures. I rebooted. This was the first reboot post recovery.

the pictures I have started to show up.

Congrats. That’s great! Hopefully it works for some people. In my case my iPhone storage is even screwing up what it displays - it hops from 26 GB used to 170 at random. iMessage shows it still hasn’t fully downloaded all texts either and I’ve kept it connected to WiFi and power for 20+ hours. My issue started when I started from scratch on a new iPhone 7 Plus. The iPhone 7 Plus had to have iOS 13.2 installed, so I did that, then logged into iCloud. I don’t think starting over will help in my case. I’m just done with iPhones.

I hope this works for others though.

A phone that originally cost around $1,000 and $9.99 a month for iCloud only for this to happen:

-Inaccurate storage displays on iPhone storage in settings and phone storage doesn’t align with iCloud storage as it should.

-iPhone won’t fully download messages from iCloud even after toggling iMessage off and on to force the “downloading messages from iCloud” to pop up in the iMessage app. 20+ hours connected to charge and WiFi - no change.

-It won’t index any older attachments beyond the first week I got the phone.

Hi,

I was having the same issue as you. The storage was showing messed but no pictures.

the storage still shows incorrect on my phone but pictures have loaded.

I have provided you with a working possible solution. If you feel it won’t work and are still moving to android, I will purchase your phone from you.

please let me know. Not sure if you can be helped if you don’t want to be.

I am willing to try this. However, like I said, my issue started when I did start from scratch on a new iPhone - so I am doubtful it will work. I’m also scared of losing more data with trying anything (what I do have on my phone as of now).

And thanks for the offer. I will let you know.

Yes same with me. I was doing a setup from scratch too.

ensure you’re cloud messages are enabled.

then do a backup.

then connect your phone to the computer and click “restore” in iTunes.

it will redoubled the entire 13.2 and will format the phone and reinstall

the whole operating system from scratch.

once it’s done, restore from the iCloud backup you created and leave it.

it wasn’t until 12 hours later of leaving it connected to power and locked overnight I started seeing indexing.

I left it for another 24 hours connected to power but the message did not go away and there was still no progress with indexing.

then I did a reboot and everything popped up.

the storage on the phone still shows 3.5GB when I have 13GB in the cloud but it seems pictures are now appearing.

So, what I expected... The engineers say to just wait. They are clueless on the matter. I was not given any information on possible solutions. I thought this would be handled better considering the prices of their products but I was wrong.

So I was contacted by Apple support after sending diagnostics off and they are clueless. Just said to give it time and not toggle messages on and off in iCloud. So, no solutions. This issue isn’t getting addressed fixed. I’m astounded.

So you encountered your issue when first setting up a new phone? Or it occurred on a phone you already had a while and updated?

I got no practical help from support. First of all, people should be either compensated or given solutions. This isn’t a minor deal.