Pictures are black in PDF of iMessage

To summarize what is really happening.

Apple, to protect ones privacy, decided to black out the images when you print or export to PDF. If you export to PDF and open the PDF with a more sophisticated editor such as Adobe Photoshop / Illustrator, Affinity Photo / Designer you will see there are layers for the images. All Apple did was put a black box layer over the top of each of the images. You can remove this black box using the more sophisticated software. Any software that can edit PDF's and display the layers should work. Fortunately, Apple decided against merging the layers or using actual redaction methods to scrub the image beneath.

All I have to do is uncheck that middle Group black box and the image below appears then save the PDF.

Obviously, that can be tedious but with professional tools you may be able to automate it a bit. Other tooling that might work would be to extract the Messages from an iPhone and there's at least 2-3 of those tools for macOS where you connect the iPhone to the Mac and use that software to extract the Messages including the attachments and you won't have the blackout occurring. This appears to be the easiest of all the methods.

Another option is to open the Messages App on the iPhone tap on the Info for the Contact at the top and select the photos you wish to save and put them into Photos. That will save your photos outside of Messages in the Photos camera roll. They will not be blacked out. I wish Apple made it easier to select many at once instead of tapping every single image one at a time. I think you can tap and drag in Photos but not in the Messages photo selection screen. At least I can't find a way to quickly select many of the Messages photos.

I just contacted Apple Support regarding this issue. I told the representative that it appears (from someone else's post on this thread), that Apple changed their privacy policy in iMessage that has resulted in this problem. I explained that there are many people who want (or need) the ability to print or save PDF copies of conversations with photos not blacked out. The representative had me make a "concise statement of complaint" that he typed up to submit.

BUT -- he informed me that the chances of this being changed, because the change was due to privacy concerns and issues, is very, very low. I explained how printing a conversation with these big black boxes was a real problem (lots of ink, paper), and how I felt that a person - if they've sent me a photo - has given me permission to print it. He suggested a "screen shot" of photos, but obviously that does not resolve the problem.

I suggest we all continue to contact support or provide feedback to Apple regarding this, and see if it can't be changed.

https://www.apple.com/feedback/

Encountering the same issue. I've contacted apple support regarding this and it seems like they've updated the privacy terms on iMessage which makes attachments like photos now unavailable on export (i.e. saving as PDF). I've been told that there's currently no way to override this. However, apparently if enough feedback was sent to apple to reverse this, they might consider making the changes.

I just tried Affinity Designer and you can see the layers of black covering the images in the PDF and hide/remove them in the layers editor. You just need software that can edit PDF layers. Adobe Acrobat / Photoshop / Illustrator can do it as well as Affinity Photo / Designer.

The Affinity software retails for $49 USD but is frequently on sale for 50% off. No subscription. There's likely at least one free tool somewhere.

But as my earlier comment indicated there are better ways to extract Messages from an iPhone / iPad using tools specifically designed for that purpose that should not cover the images with black. It's a shame Apple doesn't provide that functionality but using such a 3rd party tool would save you time.

Right, it's not much of a hinderance other than taking time to work around it. I suppose one could script most of the work with professional tooling. Apple added layers and inserted black boxes that cover the images into the PDF during export. Apparently to protect your photos. However, it's trivial to remove if you have the appropriate tools. You just need a PDF editor that can handle layers. This is not true redaction which would have merged the layers and destroyed the underlying photos.

It's best to extract the Messages using tools designed to do so from iPhones. You connect up the USB Lightning cable and run the 3rd party software and you can export all the messages without issue. You just need to pay for the app. Printing to PDF from a Mac will mean editing the layers with a different 3rd party tool to remove the black boxes overlaying the images.

I would much prefer two features. One, to import all the images in a Messages conversation directly to the Photos app along with a button for select all. I don't want to tap 100+ images by hand, that's ridiculous. Another option to export messages in a way that they can be completely preserved and easily accessible. Offer an encryption option to protect the contents.

Confirmed, I have duplicated the problem on a brand new M1 Mac mini with Big Sur 11.4 and latest patches. Super clean macOS installation. This appears to be a bug.

Everyone should submit feedback on this bug to get Apple's attention so they can fix it. There is something wrong with the rendering of images within iMessage printing (PDF or otherwise).

https://feedbackassistant.apple.com

I am having the same problem, but it appears as though there is a black box over the photo. I uploaded the PDF to Adobe, selected Edit PDF and this allows me to remove the various sections of the black box and reveal the photo. Not a long term fix, but I hope this helps.

There are alternative Apps from 3rd Parties to access your iPhone data including Messages. PhoneView, CopyTrans, and iExplorer are perhaps the top 3. These tools allow you to access your raw data and back it up or otherwise extract it more effectively than Apple normally allows.

I'm very grateful to those of you who found a solution! Thank you. I used Affinity Designer to remove the black boxes from a text conversation that turned into 28 pages as a PDF. It was tedious to find the photos and remove the right layer, but it was worth my time (about thirty minutes, perhaps). A couple things I learned in the process: start with the first page. Open the page by clicking on the arrow to the right. Look to see if you see a photo, if you do, open that "(group)." There you will see a black box and the photo. Click on the checkmark to the right of the black box to remove it. Then go to the top of that page and close it. Move to the next page. Keep doing it until you've gone through all the pages. I had a couple photos that the PDF have split across two pages - surprisingly on a couple of those I was able to unblock it, but there was one I couldn't do.

Also important -- when you are done, don't just File Save. That will give you a one page of the entire PDF. Be sure not have any of the pages selected, and then Export as PDF. I would make a different file name, so your original file isn't written over - just in case. Once you know it's worked, you can delete the old one with the blacked out photos.

Again ---- thank you to all of you who looked for a doable solution.

Never mind. The photos do show up, but it took about 20 minutes. (It's a looooong thread!) I'm going to purchase PhoneView. Thanks for your post earlier.

Hi Samsterdam2,

Thanks for coming to Apple Support Communities for help today. It sounds like you are making PDFs of iMessage conversations but images are blacked out on your Mac.

Are you going through File > Print > PDF > Save As PDF? Are any Security Options enabled?

Does this happen with every Message you attempt to save as a PDF?

What happens if you sign into Messages inside a new user account? Does the same thing occur? Here's how to make a new user: Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac.

Let us know further details.

Have a fantastic day!

Brilliant. You can remove the black boxes by just printing to PDF then opening it and deleting the black boxes. You can drag the images and videos individually out of messages to finder. And you can select images in the info tab and adding them to photos.

Not only is their attempt at privacy utterly useless, all they've done is waste people's time who need to need to save messages for legitimate work and legal reasons.

Here's where you can leave feedback for Mac Messages. Let's all submit feedback!

https://www.apple.com/feedback/messages.html

Never had to use this feature until my best friend passed away. I'm trying to save our entire chat history over the years. Wish I didn't upgrade to Big Sir.

What's frustrating is that you can see a few pixels of the image, however, the rest is covered in black. So obviously, there's some sort of bug here. Even happens on much smaller conversation threads. Emojis and link image previews appear just fine.

Help us Apple!