Can’t enlarge pictures in text message

I had the same experience - showing the circles with check marks in them - and then it just occurred to me that I was in a "delete selected" mode or something. You have to cancel out of that first (upper right "cancel"), then it works.

So the correct procedure is NOT to 2-finger spread on an image to zoom - that is what gets you into that "delete selected" mode described above. You have to tap on the image once first, it expands to fill screen, THEN you can 2-finger spread zoom in further.

Im having the same issue. When you tap on the picture, it only puts "edit" circles next to them to forward or delete it. If you hold your finger on it, it pops up a menu to copy, or save. Thats it. Short of saving it to pictures and then looking at it there, you cant enlarge it or zoom in.

On my wife's 6 a single "normal" tap yielded nothing. Just for the heck of it I used the "hard" single tap and it worked every time. I didn't "update" my 8 so I don't have the problem. It seems like lately "updates" are really down grades. So I only update when I have no other choice.

I have restarted my iPhone 11 Max Pro and it didn't help. This problem is also on my wife's iPhone 8 Plus. We both have iOS 13.1.3

When I get a picture with a text, touching it pops up a blue check mark beside it, holding a finger on it gives options but no way to enlarge or zoom in on the picture as it used to do. I have checked with two other people both with iOS 13.1.3 but on another iPhone 8 Plus and another on a iPhone 7. Their phones do as supposed to when trying to enlarge a picture in a text message. Very strange.

Apple,

Thanks for once again taking something simple, and ruining it. I hope the person who conceived was very overpaid. Why in christ's name did you need to make it hard to just tap on the photo and zoom in like we could do before. I still can't nail down how to do it. STUPID.

Also, thanks for the overpriced workstations by a factor of 3x PC prices to get a decent graphics card. I'm on my way, thanks to your brilliance.

Hello 14music,

Thanks for using Apple Support Communities! I see you're having an issue with enlarging a picture sent in Messages, and I'd like to help out.

When you try to zoom in on the picture, are you tapping on the photo first, so it opens? Then you should be able to zoom in.

If that doesn't work, have you restarted your iPhone since this started happening? If not, go ahead and restart following the steps for your iPhone model in this article, then try again: Restart your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

More info on the Messages app: Use Messages on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

Cheers!

thanks for the hard tap info. Problem is it doesn’t seem to work all the time which. So now I’m hard tapping my phone more than necessary. Is theirs a way for Apple to get us to break our $1100 phones. Also this Face ID bs can be thrown away. Now if have to actually lift the phone up to my face. It was much easier while working to reach over with a finger and then glance at what was on the phone. Basically the new features except photo features suck!!

So I'm glad there is an answer to this- hard tapping the picture once, but why take away a simple multi touch zoom function? If two fingers are doing the traditional "zooming" gesture while touching a photo why not have it implemented? Makes no sense.

Thank you Joe Vincent! What you would least expect on a touch interface to stab at the screen fast and firm but it does work oddly enough. No support or response from Apple of course, takes an end user to accidentally find the solution and post. Thank you for sharing. I'm sure your response will help many as this seems to be a common problem for users since IOS 13. Thank you Apple for not having a clue reading the thread and giving an answer nothing even close to resolve. You would expect better support from Apple. Thankfully us end users can share what we find with others.

My iphone 7+ also stopped enlarging pics sent in a message. I turned the phone off several times over a few days without success. Tonight I tried the hard tap, which did not work either, and then for some reason I decided to restart the phone one more time. It worked!

Glad to know I’m not alone ...so frustrating Just WHAT is the point ,APPLE , in adding steps to something so simple? The other ridiculous change is not being able to simply hold an app to move it ...now we have to add the step of “rearranging apps.” I do not WANT to rearrange squat , I wanna move ONE thing people !!!!!!

This actually worked on my Iphone 8. I turned on Touch Accomodations and also Swipe Gestures. Under Tap Assistance, I checked "Use Initial Touch Location". Seemed to fix the problem. The little bubbles to the left of messages disappeared, and I could enlarge pics once again. The hard tap was a waste of time for me.

Hope this helps someone. Good luck!!

Brand new iphone 11 up to date ios as of Jan 20. A gentle press on the image initiates a haptic response and the image swells in size. You can then enlarge it. Be quick as it reverts. Press copy and it saves in images.

Dear Apple Feedback Monkeys,

I had the very first iPhone and never strayed until 2015 when I bought a Samsung. I am back now with an iPhone 10x. Why did I leave? Because of software changes like this. Why would you allow your idiotic product marketing/management team to rollout this update that takes one simple gesture and turns it into 2? Do you actually test it for usability on real humans? Or do you sit around and congratulate yourselves on the genius idea of taking a simple task (enlarge a photo in text) and making it more complicated. I wish Steve Jobs would roll out from his grave and strangle the responsible parties slowly. If only this were the only issue of this sort...please punch them in the hallway for me if you can.

Amusing feed-back. I don't mind change and this one, whilst at face value seems a step back, my issue is the notion that every user knows immediately how to deal with it. It took me ages after a lot of reading to work this one out and it is simple when known! Good old Apple.