I make a PDF of my iMessages regularly. In the past I had no problem with that.
Since my update to Big Sur all the sent photos are totally black in the PDF. On the contrary links and emoticons are visible.
How can I resolve this problem?
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 11.3
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.
That means it's a layer and not a true redaction. Interesting. There are other tools besides Adobe that may be able to remove the black boxes.
That's not a bad idea - thank you for that. Leave it to Apple to put a literal band-aid to solve something that just creates a much larger issue.
I just tried with a PDF converter but it is hard to find a free PDF converter. I just edited a document with 50 pictures but to safe without watermark I needed to upgrade...
Thank you so much for this info! Great find and at least there's some temporary "solution" to this nonsense decision/bug/whatever.
New update to Big Sur 11.5.
I was a little bit curious but it is not fixed.
But you can still bypass this lock.
What is a good PDF editor?
I just downloaded an app, PDF Office pro that doesn’t fix the problem. A waste of money.
Thank you! This works, Affinity Photo. It is very easy to remove all the black layers.
I have now been able to correct all my PDF’s. The processing time is acceptable.
Same issue here and it seems Apple removed the ability to print so that the text bubbles are in color
I have the same problem. I am required to save my work conversations every two weeks. Something happened between 4/15/2021 and 4/29/2021. My PDF export on 4/15/2021 has all the images from the Messages conversation. My next PDF export on 4/29/2021, however, has black boxes where the images should be.
I'm pretty sure I didn't change anything to cause the problem. Was there a MacOS update between 4/15 and 4/29?
There was a macOS Big Sur 11.3 update on 4/26, but the release notes don't mention anything about messages. I know that I don't remember changing anything on my Mac.
Maybe somebody can test this in Messages on their Mac if they have a conversation that include images (photos, documents, etc). Select the conversation and then File > Print > Save as PDF, and see if all the images show up in the exported conversation.
I have the same thing, except I am trying to save my son's conversations. He too passed away. The only work around I have found is to drag the photos off, number them according to where they were in the conversation and store the text and pics in a folder. It's very time consuming, but you might want to do this to save the conversation (in case it somehow disappears) until Apple has fixed this issue.
They can send a person to the moon, but they can't get this right. :(
For me, I used Affinity Photo / Designer both can edit the layers. Someone else commented using Adobe Acrobat / Photoshop / Illustrator to do the same. I've not tried others. FYI, the Affinity apps sell for $50 and are not subscription based and are frequently on sale for 50% off. In the App Store and from their website for PC & Mac.
There are quite a few apps for sale but you need to make sure it can show/hide/edit layers. Layers are a primary feature in most photo and illustration software.
Apple Support suggests time consuming "solutions" like reinstallation of Big Sur or putting back an older OS. The first option doesn't work.
Maybe we have to wait for the next update.
I use Affinity Photo/Designer as well and was able to edit/remove/hide that black layer. Thanks to whoever discovered this temporary solution, very much appreciated.
Pictures are black in PDF of iMessage
