Photos in iMessage disappeared after ios13 update

Pictures have come back (I think all of them) however the storage is showing incorrect under: Settings - General - IPhone Storage

I have 13GB in iCloud. However The iPhone shows only 3GB of Messages data on the actual iPhone.

when I disable ICloud Messages, iPhone storage for Messages instantly jumps to 10GB.

its closer to 13GB but still not matching what ICloud is showing for Messages.

When I disable iCloud messages I’m informed “not all messages have been downloaded”.

at this point don’t know if it’s a GUI error just displaying wrong amount of data in use or if there is actual data still stuck in the cloud

anyone else experiencing the same?

I’m having this same issue when I don’t eve use iCloud for anything. I just updated to iOS 13.2.2 this morning (2hrs) ago from iOS 12.1.2 on my iPhone 8 Plus. I have all my messages and photos/videos, but I have to scroll up through the text messages to see them. They do not appear in the “i” icon menu where all the attachments should be at. It takes SO much time to scroll through text messages to find the photo or video I want to see. Anyone here have a fix for this? I contacted Apple Support and they told me to wait for my photos to finish indexing, whatever that even means, and that they would call me back about it in 6hrs. I don’t understand why I’m having this issue if I do not use iCloud whatsoever.

Hmm, so perhaps this is mainly a software issue? Those of us with iCloud are finding that our phones won’t fully download messages. It’s been weeks and mine have still not indexed or fully downloaded. They told me the same exact thing, to wait, which is absurd because this is NOT a time issue for many of us. Some people on here have had the issue over a month. Apple is clueless.

I have not done a restore like you (I am going to wait to call again) but I also have the same storage display problem. My phone shows I have 36 GB or so in messages, but the cloud shows 87 GB of messages. My iPhone also doesn’t show the correct number of photos and videos when plugged up to my laptop, meaning, they haven’t fully downloaded to the phone, yet I can access them on the phone’s app. I noticed when I hook my iPhone flash drive in that the flash drive tells me that many photos/videos are in the cloud but not on my phone. When I try to transfer stuff that way it ends up being an error on that flash drive. So for those of us having cloud issues I think it’s both the cloud and the software. Something is majorly wrong. I never had this issue with iOS. I have always LOVED apple and apple products since I was young but I am starting to head in the other direction. Apple Support has been of no real help and said to “wait”, which is a lazy response - I thought I would receive better help. Incredibly disappointed. My messages still won’t fully download or index.

Hi,

I posted the fix above.

you need to do a full recovery restore to the latest. Not a over the air update.

once you have restored, load your backup and it will take 24-48 hours. If not appears in 24 hours reboot your phone and confirm.

I followed these instructions posted by @th1ef and my pics are finally showing up. I've added a few notes.

This is the fix:

1) backup to iCloud

2) connect phone to computer

3) create iTunes backup (if you wish) (....I did a backup to my Mac using Finder)

4) restore iPhone software (this will wipe the OS and completely reinstall 13.2) (....I also did the restore through Finder)

5) go through initial setup and restore from iCloud backup. (....Restoring from iCloud backup did not work for me. I restored from the backup stored on my Mac and it worked)

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 not have all my pictures. I rebooted. This was the first reboot post recovery. The pictures I have started to show up. (....I did not require a reboot)

Jmpls, question:

do you use iCloud for Messages?

if so, if you go to settings, click your name and go to messages how much storage are you using?

then if you go to: settings - general - iPhone storage - messages

are they are same?

if you check under messages under the iPhone storage and click “top conversations” does it look normal?

I do use iCloud for Messages

My iCloud Messages storage and Messages on iPhone storage numbers were not matching. I noticed this before contacting Apple Support which lead me to conclude that I was not missing any data, but it was not properly indexing with my phone.

When I look at top conversations now it does appear normal. It appeared off before I did the restore and the photos indexed properly.

Since the issue resolved itself with a restore from backup stored on my Mac, it would seem I had some sort of issue with my iCloud backup that was preventing iOS from indexing previous photos. Who knows what it was, but I've dealt with this since iPhone 11 launch day because my 11 Pro Max came with iOS 13. I had tried to restore from iCloud backup more than once, but the locally stored backup seems to have done the trick for me.

I had over 22GB of Messages in iCloud. I do not know the exact count of photos that were included, but it has to be in the thousands based on how far back some of the history goes. I don't know the entire backup time, but it was left plugged in overnight.

I also had this problem! I have 100s of pictures just gone. I used the download link and when it was done even it disappeared. Now there’s nothing. I have really important photos that I left in messages because I could quickly get to them that way. I’m really hoping this is fixed and I get my pictures back

Download button doesn’t work, it appears it was added for decoration as Christmas is approaching.

The only known fix is to do a full backup in cloud and for safe measure to a computer then use the computer to do a full restore of the latest IOS (12.2.2 at the time of writing) then restore your backup.

this will force the indexing to work and will take about 24-48 hours. Your photos may not initially reappear when you set up the phone after the restore. give it time.

this still does not resolve the inaccurate storage display which shows significantly less on the iPhone storage then in iCloud storage.

When you did the restore from your Mac did you have messages in iCloud turned on or off in the backup? Not sure if i feel like doing this and going through the stress or waiting and hoping that Apple will finally figure it out in the next update

thx

It seems like it already may have been addressed. Waiting for a new update won’t yield results if the OS system files are corrupted somewhere.

iCloud messages were enabled when I backed up and restored.

seems like maybe the indexing service that was running after a restore was getting stuck and the only way to

retrigger it now is starting on a newly restored phone. Which they must have fixed...

it looks like a restore is needed when upgrading from a problematic version of 13 to the latest. Something must be corrupted in the system partition.

however the data used is still showing wrong.

if you are sitting around waiting for a fix I think you’re not going to get anywhere as the “fix” for indexing was already released.

The thing that scares me is I got a new phone and did a fresh restore and still had no indexing. My photos are in the thread so I know they are there. My restore was from the cloud vs iTunes. Just waiting for the engineers to come up with a fix before I try my 10th restore but first from my Mac. This has been an unnecessary obsession for me to find a fix

thanks for your advice. May try with a spare phone tomorrow from my IT Dept

Has Apple Support given you anymore information? Have you sent in both iPhone and iCloud diagnostics?

I feel the same as you. I am scared about trying a restore - scared of things getting even worse. I got a new phone and updated (not hooked up to iTunes) and it was set up as new and everything, and didn’t work right. I haven’t done a restore from a computer but am a bit hesitant.