Portrait Mode Photos Corrupted (Gray Bar)

Hi,

I just wondered if anyone has found a fix for this? I have read your workaround but I have already moved the images from the phone to my PC so unfortunately I am too late to do this.

I have a number of photos taken recently on holiday in portrait mode, all of which have the same grey corruption.

I downloaded the files from iCloud first as a backup, however they cannot be restored and have the same corruption.

Also, as they were moved (not deleted) they are not in the deleted files.

I have tried:

HEIC convertion software

Apps that re-imports to camera roll

CopyTrans photo import

iCloud for Windows

copying to iCloud Drive

This is ********. this has ruined hundreds of pictures. This shouldn't be acceptable in 2021-2022. I shouldn't have to own a mac to properly transfer images over to my computer. It used to work perfect a while back.

Using my annual downtime to copy my iPhone photos onto my computer for safe keeping - and I too now have permanently broken countless images that have been transferred to my Windows X system.

Pushing the same grey-bar HEIC images back onto the phone, I see the grey bar issue is unfortunately permanent (and please do correct me if I'm wrong).

What's worse, is that I have no easy method of now sorting the corrupt edited images from the originals, due to the way the transfer has named the files for archiving.

This is incredibly poor form. I will be following this thread and waiting for both Apple and Microsoft to address this important issue - which is for the sake of clarity, being able to easily transfer photos from my iPhone (11) onto my Windows 10 desktop via an iPhone USB cable.

I have this exact issue and thought I was doing something wrong, as I'm not that tech savvy. It's vindicating, in a way, to see that everyone using an iphone and a PC is having this issue and has since 2020 sometime.

Everyone's right- this is absolutely ridiculous that this problem exists at all, much less the fact that I've been dealing with it since 2020 and it's now 2022. Get yourselves together, Apple. You shouldn't be getting in the way of my buying an expensive phone in order to have the best camera available and then not being able to just copy/paste them to my computer for storage via Window File Explorer. If you cannot do this most basic task without ruining my photos, what the **** are you worth?

Thanks for the tip, Ryder_del_Fin! For some reason when I direct the iCloud client on my PC to download photos, it only finds some of them. There should be 2,881 photos detected and downloaded, but for some reason it's only seeing 765 to download. Is there a setting I'm missing somewhere for it to be able to see all of them?

To be clear, I directed the downloading through my computer. I do not have iCloud Photos enabled on my phone. When you say to download them through iCloud on your computer, do you mean they'll already be in the iCloud folder on your computer because you have to have iCloud Photos enabled in the photos settings on your phone first?

I know. 😫 It’s absolutely insane that this issue wasn’t fixed immediately. It’s been going on for over a year and they are messing with people’s photos and memories!! Saving your photos from a premium device should NOT, under any circumstances, require a workaround.

Tell me about it! And now I have to figure out how to force iCloud to start uploading my photos in the first place so I can finally get this done. Because OF COURSE it's not uploading photos even though I just bought more storage and turned everything on so it should be uploading.

@AussieLyndal Looks like we're hopping threads. Yes, I posted my workaround to both to try to help more people. So I am very confused on 2 fronts:

1. When you say the "edited version" what do you mean? Edited in what way and how?
2. The screenshots you are showing me of your settings and what you are describing is not what I see when I do my process. I do not need to "download" anything.

When I go to access my iCloud photos I just open File Explorer and travel to iCloud Photos on the right hand side.

The photos that show up in this folder, for me are full resolution. For example, this portrait mode photo on my iPhone says it's 3204 x 4032. Here is it on that folder on my computer and the pixel size matches. Note I am using Windows 11 and this file is showing up as a HEIC.

However, I am noticing that this photo on my phone says its 2.4 MB, but above it says it's 702.9 KB. I also noticed this item had a white circle with a green check mark on it, but my older photos had a green circle with a white check mark. I checked the file size and resolution of some of the ones that had the green circle, and they usually matched within 0.1 MB of the size listed on my phone. But I also checked some newer ones and sometimes the size matched but not always. I am confused about this..... But all of the resolutions match... Why would some match and some not? And what does it mean that the resolution is the same but the file size isn't? I agree it's absolutely stupid.

Makes sense. Thank you for clarifying, Ryder_del_Fin. Now to go spend more money to be able to get the best resolutions photos that I bought this phone for in the first place... :/

Nothing is a mistake. $53billion a year..

I’m having the same issue but transferring from my MacBook M1 to a WD external hard drive connected to my Mac Mini over the network. Gray bars. Frustrating! Apple, do better.

Hello thehushedcasket,

Welcome to Apple Support Communities!

It sounds like the image quality of your photos is affected when you transfer them from your iOS device to your PC. We'd like to help.

Do you use iCloud Photos? If so, log in to iCloud.com on your PC and try to import one of those photos, does the issue continue this method?

Also, try importing the photos following the steps under "Import to your Windows PC" in Transfer photos and videos from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

If the issue with the image quality continues after trying these suggestions, contact Apple Support as a next step: Get Support.

Have a nice day.