After iOS 18 update photos in iMessage have disappeared

Here’s the fix:

Go to Settings>Apps>Messages

Click on Siri and turn all those settings off and then back on again.

Then go back to the previous menu and click on Search. Turn all those settings off and back on again also.

Now when you go back to your photos in your messages, you will see a message saying the phone is indexing all your messages. Give it some time. It might take a few hours or even a whole day, but all your photos in your messages should come back eventually.

This worked perfectly for me. Thank you! I have an IPhone 13.

Make sure messages are turned on in iCloud

Settings > iCloud > Messages > Sync

all your iMessages shared photos and links should come back

Ok, I contacted Apple today on this issue. To rectify, I had to reset the phone.

For anyone else having this issue, this is what you have to do: Go to Settings > General > Transfer or Reset Phone > Reset > Reset all settings.

Note: you won't lose your apps, but stuff like your alarms, focus time etc, will be erased. If you haven't done a backup in a while, you may want to do that before you reset.

Scorpi0's fix worked on my iPhone 12 right out of the gate. Instantly. Thaaank you!

Doesn’t work for me

Then you’ll need to call Apple Support directly

X

That fix didn’t work for me : (

Perfect fix! I was going crazy trying to find old photos by flipping back through the text stream!! THANK YOU!!!