Unable to delete some iMessage photos

Question

decademoon Author

Level 1

11 points

Unable to delete some iMessage photos

I'm experiencing a frustrating problem with iMessage for a few years now.

There are some photo attachments in iMessage that will not delete. This is what I do:

Open iMessage conversation.
Tap contact header.
Under Photos tap See All.
Tap Select then tap all the photos I want to delete.
Tap Delete then Delete X Attachments.
The screen sort of flickers (like the list is being refreshed) but most of the photos I had selected are still there.
If I try deleting the same photos again they still won't delete.
If I try deleting the photos one at a time by tap-and-holding on each photo, still no luck.
I turned off iCloud message sync, waited a few weeks and tried again. Still no luck.
I completely restored my phone from a manual backup I did on my MacBook (because I wanted to preserve my message history). Photos are still bugged.
Also happens on my iPad and MacBook!

What's going on? I really don't want to nuke the entire conversation just to delete the photos.

Is there some way I can diagnose the problem? The Console app didn't log any suspicious errors.

iPhone 11, iOS 15.2.1 (though this has been happening even a few major versions prior).

iPhone 11

Posted on Jan 25, 2022 6:08 PM

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Answer 1

KMB_12

Community Specialist

Jan 26, 2022 6:57 PM in response to decademoon

Hello and welcome to Apple Support Communities decademoon,

We see that you're having an issue when trying to delete photos from a message thread. We'd be happy to help.

You've done some great troubleshooting steps already to try to resolve this issue. Next, let's have you try to delete the photos another way.

Go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage > Messages > Photos, and try to delete them that way. This way might take a little longer, but it will also help with trying to isolate this issue.

If the issue remains, can you tell us if this happens with all photos in all message threads, or just this specific one?

Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.

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Answer 2

KMB_12

Community Specialist

Feb 8, 2022 12:52 PM in response to decademoon

Hi decademoon,

We appreciate the additional details. We certainly understand wanting to get this resolved and not wanting to delete the whole thread. However, since this is only affecting the one or two threads, you may want to consider deleting the thread.

If you have additional questions or concerns, you would want to reach out to Apple Support.

Get Support

Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.

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Answer 3

decademoon Author

Level 1

11 points

Jan 27, 2022 7:32 PM in response to KMB_12

Thank you for replying :)

On that screen I don't see the photo but I can delete other photos there. Also a lot of the photos there have a generic thumbnail and tapping on them does nothing (I can't delete them either since I can't open them).

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Answer 4

KMB_12

Community Specialist

Jan 28, 2022 12:50 PM in response to decademoon

Hello decademoon,

Thanks for the update. Is this only happening with one thread? Or is this happening with all threads that contain photos? Also, the photos that you're still unable to delete from your settings, do you know where they came from? Were they taken on the contacts device or downloaded from a website?

We look forward to hearing back from you.

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Answer 5

decademoon Author

Level 1

11 points

Feb 7, 2022 2:50 PM in response to KMB_12

There is one thread in particular that is especially bugged, but there is also another that has buggy photos that I cannot delete. It appears to be mostly older photos, more recent photos I can always delete no problem. Also I've tried manually locating the bugged photo in the message list but I have to keep scrolling up and it took me like 15 mins to scroll back that far and I couldn't find the photo that way.

The photos I cannot delete I think were sent to me as screenshots from macOS (the sender took a screenshot on their mac, dragged the photo into the Messages app and send it to me that way).

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Unable to delete some iMessage photos

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