unable to delete a photo from iMessage detail iPhone XS Max IOS 13.1

Hello Db1204,

Thank you for using Apple Support Communities! I understand that you are unable to delete a photo from the Details window in the Messages app on your iPhone XS Max. I would be happy to help provide steps to take next.

Are you unable to exit the Details window in Messages? If so, force the Messages app to close and restart the iPhone:

1. How to force an app to close on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support
2. Restart your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

If the issue is that you don't have the option to select Delete on a photo under Details, try the following steps:

Use Messages on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

"Find attachments from a conversation 

1. Open the message.
2. Tap the name of the contact at the top of the message, then tap . 
3. You'll see Images and Attachments. Touch and hold an image or attachment to show options like Copy, Delete, and More."

To delete photos within the Messages app, you can also go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage > Messages > Photos. Let us know what happens after trying those steps.

Cheers!

Ok Guys, I figured it out. If you’re also trying to delete unwanted images from your imessage. Do the whole settings>iPhone storage>imessage thing. When you open the imessage folder, click on review large attachments, all your attachments won’t come up here so try and delete as much as you can from this file. As you delete you realize that other pictures from your imessage chat history are included that weren’t there before. Hopefully the unwanted pictures comes up and you can delete from here! That’s what I did and it worked for me!

That works finally an answer. Now if Apple would fix that bug it would be great.

“if you had sent a photo or a video with word text attached to it, that's why the photo is still showing up in the photos history. Simply click on the photo in question, it will then take you to the point in your texting history where the message and photo was sent (notice there is no photo in the actual text log). Then just delete the text message words that were attached to the photo and the unwanted photo will now be cleared out of the photo history. “

The answer is to go settings>general>iPhone storage>messages>photos. There you can delete any photo from your messages. The only issue is it will only show a certain number of them so you have to keep deleting to get smaller size pics to show where you can delete them. This at least works to get the pictures off that don’t need to be on there any longer.

The instructions below will help delete pictures from iMessages: Go To:

General>iPhone storage>messages>review large attachments> delete the picture(s) you want to delete. This will delete the picture from the message. 

@Nekomata, if you followed the steps outlined in the post, when you get to messages, click on the chevron to the right of messages, you will see the option to review large attachments; click on the chevron and it will open a list of pictures, click on edit, touching the items will place a check mark in them, then click on the waste basket. I just did it for myself and family.

Had this same problem and while this isn’t a direct fix, deleting the entire text thread removed the photos.

@doubledown630 Thank you! That was the trick...deleting the text that was attached to the photo. You helped me when Apple Support had no clue what to do.

I’m having the exact same problem. This is obviously a flaw, and needs to be fixed. You cannot delete these photo by going into settings>general etc... IT DOES NOT WORK. As of now, they are stuck on the phone until apple fixes the situation.

if you had sent a photo or a video with word text attached to it, that's why the photo is still showing up in the photos history. Simply click on the photo in question, it will then take you to the point in your texting history where the message and photo was sent (notice there is no photo in the actual text log). Then just delete the text message words that were attached to the photo and the unwanted photo will now be cleared out of the photo history.

Sometimes we send photos with no words attached to them and those photos delete very easily. But if we attach text to a photo it seems to keep a deleted photo in the photo history unless we delete the text too.

I had originally taken the photo on live without noticing it. For some reason that photo and one other read as movies in kB instead of just photos. Nothing I did that’s supposed to work, incl every suggestion from this forum, worked. With a heavy heart I had to delete the entire convo which was important to me and I don’t save anything to the cloud either, so it’s all gone. Heartbreaking. I was afraid that would be the only way. Apple did zero to help. I wish you luck. I don’t use Live Photo anymore and it’s annoying that it defaults to Live —I have to turn it off manually. Very sad.

Agree, I have some photos that will not delete in the message Details section. This happened after the 13.13 upgrade. Also, the “more” feature no longer exist to allow you to select more than one photo at a time to delete in the Details section. Please escalate to resolve this problem. This a big issue.

This above solution is all well and good. It has been an option all along. The 'fix' for deleting photos using select/delete within Messages was supposed to be one of the fixes in 13.2.3. It does not work. You can select and enter. you get a confirmation message asking if you want delete # images. If you hit Delete, it just clears the selection check marks and no i mages are deleted.

This should be fixed right now, Apple. Your 'solution here is half-baked.

I am having the exact same issue. I’m using 13.1.3. The image is deleted from the text chain. I did save a copy of it first then deleted that from photos. I cannot get rid of it from the “i “ part of the persons contact in messages. The last thing I need are images i cannot permanently delete to show up if I try to quickly access images and info from an individual. This needs to be resolved quickly or it will cause a lot of people problems.

I didn’t even I realized I had this problem with the unwanted photo until it created a much bigger, sadder problem. I would really like to be able to delete anything I want from my phone, sadly this does not seem possible at this time. I’m just about to update IOS 13.2.3. I received an unwarranted photo and it has created so much unnecessary pain. Please help.