Portrait Mode Photos Corrupted (Gray Bar)

I would like to share a solution that worked for me after trying all other settings. To recap, Transfer Photos to PC "Automatic" setting caused my phone to time out with transferring any video or a large number of photos. Removing screen lock did not remedy this. Transfer Photos to PC "Keep Originals" setting introduced the gray bar on all portrait mode photos. Downloading the photos from iCloud online was not an acceptable work around because when you download from a web browser it almost halves the photo quality. My solution was to download iCloud for Windows, and then copy from the "iCloud" folder to my external hard drive or other storage location. No time outs, no gray bars, and 100% photo quality. Hope this helps some of you!!!

After posting above, I borrowed a Mac (with old Sierra MacOS unfortunately) and tried copying the photos off my iPhone using that. I found the same issue occurs when using the Apple Image Capture app. So issue is not confined to Windows - it occurs at least on MacOS 10.12: Sierra too with Image Capture. I was saving it to an exFAT external hard drive. Unfortunately as it's not my Mac, I didn't have the option of upgrading it to see if that fixed the issue there.

The issue does not occur on the Mac if I used the Apple Photos app to import, but Photos app does not allow me to move the affected photos easily to my Windows machine. I can't even easily find the affected photos as there are no filenames in Photos app.

The only practical way I found I could get the full resolution HEIC photos off my iPhone without the grey bar, was uploading my photos from my iPhone to OneDrive or DropBox. Unfortunately both those cloud services are not great, as they automatically rename the photo files. So with a lot of photos, its a slow manual slog to copy and replace the corrupted ones in my photo library. Now done after more than a day wasting my time with this with all the testing etc.... very angry that obviously Apple have not QA'd their HEIC handling software on iOS at all. Please fix this urgently Apple.

@ryder_del_fin, if you upload the photos from your iPhone to a non-Apple cloud service, e.g. OneDrive or iDrive (I have checked both), and then download them to your computer, both edited and original have full resolution 3204 x 4032 as you mentioned. However, the edited photo is always about two-thirds the file size of the unedited original. This is true for both .jpg and .heic formats. Numbers for one photo I have:

JPG: 3159Kb vs 2146KB

HEIC: 1374KB vs 934KB

Other photos I have follow the same pattern. Note: these are all non-Live photos . I normally have Live turned off, so haven't tested if using Live makes any difference to this. Live photos transferred to Windows land there as a regular photo file plus a video/movie file.

Thanks so much @Ryder_del_Fin! I just checked my PC's iCloud Download folder and sure enough, the photos there have full resolution/quality on both jpg and heic formats, and no grey bar!

Odd that when I download from iCloud using a web browser on the icloud.com site, rather than using the iCloud Download folder, that it reduces the resolution of the photos... just something to be wary of I guess. However, using the Download folder is good enough workaround for me on this issue and easier (imho) than using OneDrive or another 3rd party cloud option.

If you have a lot of photos and videos though, and you upload from your iOS device to iCloud, you'll need a paid iCloud subscription to have enough space. So this solution may not be practical for everyone. Hope Apple comes up with an actual fix soon though.

I am getting the same issue. It happens on every photo that has some special processing by the phone, e.g. Portrait mode where the background is blurred. The unprocessed original is OK - it is the "E" edited photo from iOS that has the problem. It happens whether I use a file import tool (e.g. Fastone Image Viewer) or just copy it directly from the iPhone using Windows File Explorer. Download from iCloud is not a suitable workaround. I just found that the HEIC files downloaded automatically to my PC from iCloud are significantly lower quality than when copied from iPhone: 2048 x 1536 24 bit depth vs 4032 x 3024 and 32 bit depth for the same photo. Pretty dirty trick Apple: considering I'm paying for my extra iCloud storage, and using the automatic download option to "download new photos and videos to my PC" and "keep high-efficiency original if available", and it does not advertise that it is reducing the resolution when you download from iCloud. It also happens if I just go to iCloud in my browser and download a file from there.... the download jpg has the lower resolution and bit depth compared to a HEIC file copied from my iPhone and converted to JPG on my PC. So, iCLoud is most defintely not a viable workaround for anyone who cares about photo quality, sorry. Please fix this defect urgently Apple.

I also cannot get the iPhone to "automatically transfer in a compatible format", due to another known issue that causes the iPhone to disconnect constantly during transfer when that setting is used.

Correction to my previous reply to @Ryder_del_Fin: I think I was looking at the wrong copy of the files. Only the unedited files are full resolution. Edited files are still half resolution.

You can see above, the edited .jpg and .heic are half the file size of the edited file of the same name. It is not about using more compression either. The photos are physically half the numbre of pixels (1536x2048) and so half the size, of the unedited files for the same photo (3024x4032).

I have tried this to an external USB drive and a local drive - it makes not a jot of difference.

I am using the WIndows app to download, not downloading from a browser.  I just configured the download location in my iCloud app to be other than the default which is why you saw the folder named "Download" in my screenshot.  The folder location isn't relevant to the issue though.   FWIW my app settings are below.   Definitely on my Windows machines (I tested 2 of them so far) the iCloud app downloads half size edited photos.   Not sure why mine and yours is different????

I agree that downloads by clicking the Download button in the iCloud site in a web browser doesn't download full size images.   What I did learn a short time ago after a bit more Google'ing is there is a hidden option to download "unmodified originals" iCloud via a web browser.   When you click the Download button, by default it downloads a highly reduced image size.  If instead of clicking Download button, you click-and-hold the button, you get a menu pop up which allows you to select the original size:

Sadly, that still is not a workaround because although it downloads the full size image, it downloads only the unedited file.  If you choose the option "Most Compatible" instead, you get the edits, but it is a half size image.   So, still no cigar.... iCloud seems determed to only allow half size edited files to be downloaded from it.... to Windows anyway. Haven't checked that on Mac. Will try to do so.

FWIW, as mentioned in another post of mine, using Microsoft OneDrive to upload photos from iPhone to OneDrive Cloud, then downloading from OneDrive to a PC, is a workaround - you get full-sized photos. I have since found that a paid, 3rd party cloud backup  service I use, called iDrive, works too: it will backup only full size edited photos from an iPhone (it doesn't backup the unedited version), and if you restore the file you backed up from iPhone to your Windows

machine, you get the full size photo downloaded.  It's interface to download is very slow and kludgy, not ideal for lots of edited photos, and iDrive is far from free, but it works. Based on what I've seen with OneDrive and iDrive, I suspect that any 3rd-party cloud backup service would probably work to get full-sized edited photos off iPhone. As a cloud service, it's just iCloud that's poorly designed and reducing the size of our photos without telling anyone. At the moment, I would say neither iPhone+iCloud are not justified as the high quality photo platforms that Apple claims them to be. iPhone/iOS has a serious defect and iCloud is just badly designed.

This is crap. Android anyone?

I have the same issue with many of my photos. I noticed that the corrupted photos have a different name. For example, I would have file named IMG_1835.HEIC and another IMG_E1835.HEIC (notice the E added to the filename). The file with "E" will be corrupted showing the gray bar once transferred to my PC but shows fine on my iPhone. The one without the "E" shows fine on my PC but has the incorrect form factor (4032 X 3024). The correct form factor should be 4032 X 2268 but has a grey bar in it when transferred to my PC.

No resolution to this problem and I wonder if there will ever be. I don’t understand why such a widespread problem is not resolved yet by Apple. When you transfer files you should notice that corrupted files come in pair. The corrupted version will have the proper ratio but shows the grey area. The other file will be a bit much larger so you can always come back to that one and crop it to have your original photo size. When you take a picture with your iPhone you will notice that when editing it that you can move the frame a bit outside the original frame. That is because the iPhone uses this picture as the original editable larger photo while the end result is the automatically edited version.

I have an update on the size discrepancy that I experienced and described in my earlier post. When you pull up the info of a portrait photo on the iPhone it's often in the 2MB range. If you open the same photo on your iCloud folder using the method I described above, the resolution of the photo is full (3204 x 4032) but the size is less. Usually in the 1MB range. If you then go to edit that photo in your iPhone and adjust the portrait mode effect (the blurry background effect) and adjust it to remove the blurry background effect. Then wait for the updated photo to upload back on your computer. If you now open it up, you will find the updated photo (that doesn't have the blurry background anymore) has the same MB as the photo listed in the iPhone. It's my theory that the iPhone size listed is for the underlying photo wihtout the blur effect applied, and that when you apply the blurry effect and export the photo, that photo takes up less space (presumably because the blurry part takes up less information?) I have also found that non-portrait mode photos on the computer are usually 0.1MB less than their counterpart on the iPhone. These are usually Live photos and I believe the small difference in size is due to the the Live photo video part. If anyone can confirm these theories that would be awesome.

BTW, there's another post about this issue too: https://origin-discussions2-us-dr-prz.apple.com/en/thread/251982667?page=1

Hey katekate, so I do have a paid iCloud subscription and if I go to Settings > Apple ID > iCloud > Photos is turned on. I also have “Download and Keep Originals” checked instead of “Optimize Storage”. (I also have “Automatic” checked in my photos transfer setting, but I’m not sure that matters.) I had over 3,000 items and I think it took a while for them to all show up in my iCloud folder on File Explorer. I also chose to keep all the photos on my computer (for now, instead of just being in the cloud) and it took about a day for all of them to actually download. I’m not sure if that was a crucial step though.

So basically, I think yes, the photos you are trying to save have to be added to iCloud from your phone, as downloading iCloud for Windows will only give you access to the photos in iCloud, NOT necessarily access to the photos on your phone.

If iCloud photos is not turned on currently I would expect the photos you can see would be older.

@Ryder_del_fin: edited by iOS/iPhone. A photo taken in any of the special modes, e.g. "Portrait" mode that we've been talking about, is a photo that has gone through special processing by iOS. In the case of Portrait mode, it digitally "edits" the photo and makes the background fuzzy to give an out-of-focus effect. I call it "edited" just because when it is transferred to Windows, the file name has an E in it, which I have always just assumed means "edited". e.g. IMG_6829.jpg is the one without any special effect and IMG_E6829.jpg has a special effect. Maybe the "E" means "Enhanced" or something else? Sorry for creating any confusion on this!

Regarding the difference in file size in iCloud folder that you are seeing vs me. Maybe Windows 11 makes a difference to what iCloud does? I'm sadly stuck on Windows 10, as both my computers are incompatible with Win 11. I don't have a Win11 computer to test on.

Is anyone else able to check file sizes in iCloud folder and if so, what Windows version are you on?

Bad news, using an iPhone11Pro with iOS15.4 and transferring brand new photos (taken today) to my Windows 11 machine, I still see the grey corruption, grey block, or whatever you want to call it on all "Portrait Mode" IMG_Exxxx.HEIC files.

Yes, that’s correct @katekate358. You must enable Photos in the iCloud settings on your phone, to allow the photos taken on your phone to be uploaded to iCloud.

Does your phone need to be charging and on WiFi? Hopefully this is a more basic issue that Apple Support can help with.