Can’t send photos from iPhone to Android

This should fix it.

1. Go to photos app and select photos that you want to send.
2. Press the share button.
3. At the top of the share menu press options.
4. Select iCloud link in order to send to android devices as they do not support iMessage.

Then send to the person as normal either through messages or email.

They will then be able to download the photos from iCloud.

I see it has been mentioned but here is an answer and one way to get past this for now: View the photo that you want to send on your iphone and take a "screenshot" of the picture. Save that picture to your photos. This will create a photo in the format of PNG or JPEG which can then be sent to an android user. You will see that without doing this, most likely your photos are in a format of HEIFF which is what causes the incompatibility issue

I have successfully sent pictures using the above to 2 recipients that I had "delivery failures" previously. I hope I have finally got past this. FYI - iphone 14 max pro. Pictures were sent over wifi since I was in my house but I didn't use airplane mode or turn off cellular.

*UPDATE*

I received a cell booster from AT&T, and all I can say is 'WOW'. After installation and setup of about 30 minutes or so, I went from 1 bar to a full 4 bars. And I haven't had a single problem sending a text message with pictures or GIF's to Android phones. This completely solved my problem ! Link to the hardware below:

AT&T Cell Booster

P.S. word has it Apple will include a software fix in iOS 18 this Fall sometime. We shall see ...

SMS/MMS is a feature provided by your cellular provider. Contact them for help with this.

I had a similar problem with iPhone 11. The solution was to disconnect/disable VPN. Apparently, there is an issue with changing an IP address by the VPN.

Are you attempting to send the MMS messages via WiFi or over the cellular network? There are a couple of issues. iPhones save pictures taken on the phone in a special format that is unique to IOS and not compatible with any other operating system. You need to change your iPhone camera setting to save pictures as jpg files. Also when you send a picture to another iPhone it is sent as an iMessage which is a completely different protocol and only functions iPhone to iPhone. If youre sending it to an android phone it will be sent as an mms message.

If you’re trying to send it via WiFi calling because you live in a poor reception area the IPhone for some reason will automatically send voice calls and sms text messages via WiFi if connected but defaults to sending mms messages to cellular. If you have insufficient signal strength in cellular the mms will “fail to deliver”. This makes it seem like it’s an incompatibility issue between iPhone and Android when it’s not. It is a bug in the iPhone software. Try going into settings under cellular and toggle off cellular data. This will force the iPhone to send the mms via WiFi.

Thanks so much, Hogstir. Turning off Cellular Data when on my home network (where my cell signal is non-existent) finally fixed this. I had switched my photo option to jpg long ago for other reasons. I could easily send when not on my home network with a decent cellular signal. My cellular provider is Verizon.

taking a screenshot works and it could be for a number of reasons (format, size). Regardless, let’s keep this simple for people that need a way to get around this for now (ie mask).

all - take a screenshot of your iPhone photo and you can send that to androids

samisalwaysmad wrote:

I see that, but still the issue persists. Sending pictures to android users when I have no service just fail every time.

Of course. SMS and RCS REQUIRE a cellular network connection, both voice and data. They cannot use Wi-Fi.

SMS/MMS can only use the cellular network; it cannot use Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. SMS uses the voice network control channel (SS7 network). MMS uses cellular data, so you need both a voice network connection and cellular data to send MMS, but only voice for SMS.

Can you connect to wifi in either place? If so, temp toggle off your cell service, send the pics over wifi, then toggle back on.

I have to do this all the time because I live in the Mt Hood area of Oregon & we have lots of dead zones.

Installing a cell booster from AT&T fixed the issue for me 100%. Haven’t had an issue since.

Hi @Truckwomanshana - I miraculously got a solve! As mentioned earlier, I did all the troubleshooting - off/on, cellular data off/on, mms off/on, reset network settings - no go. However, I came across the following article:

https://www.airdroid.com/file-transfer/iphone-wont-send-pictures-to-android/

In this, it recommended turning airplane off and on. I did this from settings, however didn't help. I followed the instruction on this link and turned airplane off and on from the control centre view - & for me it worked?! I'm on SE 3rd gen.

I have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm posting this as it's been very frustrating. Hope it helps someone!

I have been having issues sending photos to android users for at least a couple years... before that it worked fine, so what changed? Hard to believe that if it has been happening this long, Apple isn't aware of the issue. I have just defaulted to sending photos to my android friends using Facebook messenger, they send fine every time. It is something specific to the Apple messages app.

Thank you because this is the only tweaks that have worked for me. Changed my camera setting to the jpeg option and turned off my cellular. Now my pictures are sending to my android friends. :)