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’ve been having this issue for several months and have done like most others; tried everything. Reset network settings, talked to the carrier (Mint Mobile) and apple support. Nothing worked. Kept getting an error message that said “you must enable MMS to send photos” or something along those lines, even though MMS has not been switched off at all. This morning, I requested a new e-sim from my carrier and that resolved my issue! I hope that helps someone else!

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.

This is an incorrect statement. Some providers do in fact support mms via wifi calling. The iPhone however has an issue where it automatically defaults to sending mms messages via cellular data even if you are connected and using WiFi calling.

Turning off the cellular data in settings will remove that choice from the iPhone and it will then send it via WiFi as long as your carrier supports it. T Mobile is one that supports it.

You can’t send MMS messages over Wi-Fi. CAN’T. It won’t work.

And iOS messaging automatically converts HEIF to JPG when sending via MMS. And even if it didn’t that wouldn’t prevent sending, it would just require the recipient to have a device that supports the HEIF standard that has been around since 2017, but the message would still be sent. What might prevent sending is if the photo is too large to send via MMS. Then taking a screenshot (which is automatically low resolution, small size) would work but would actually be masking the problem.

*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 ...

This is what worked for me:

Settings>Camera>Formats>Most Compatible

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.

I have an iphone 15 plus and had the same issue. I turned off cellular data which used the wifi to deliver the pictures and screenshots to the android phone. Even tested it out with a couple android phones and it sent!

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.

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

This worked for me. Turning off my cellular completely forcing it to use WiFi. Sent the message right away. Thank you!