Missing photos in iMessage after iOS 26 update

I do not have a photos tab at all… I turned on the sync on my iCloud for messages but no photos tab. Any tips and tricks?

Has anyone checked with the recent 26.2 update if the issue was fixed.

No luck! I’m in shock! Super disappointed after the countless hours I spent with Sr Apple Advisors. Shame on you Apple!

No it’s not related to having an active iCloud subscription. I’ve had one since the service became available and there has been no fix offered by any Apple “engineer” that could solve it.

It’s hard to believe this bug has not been resolved. Apple please!

After restoring to new iPhones from backup, the Photos tab in iMessage contact info is missing or incomplete.

Steps to Reproduce:

Restore new iPhone from iCloud/iTunes backup.

Open iMessage → select a contact → tap name at top.

Check for Photos tab.

Expected Result:

Photos tab should appear consistently and show the full history of shared photos (hundreds dating back to 2016).

Actual Result:

On some contacts (including mine), the Photos tab is missing entirely.

When it does appear, it only shows a partial set of photos.

Same behavior observed on both my phone and my wife’s, and also reported by other contacts.

I’ve found the temporary work around. I’m on iPhone 17pro and photos tab is missing. In messages search I can type the name of the contact followed by photos such as John Smith Photos and then it shows all photos in conversations with that contact. Not as good as the old way but at least gets the job done for now.

Had the same issue.

found a fix. Slightly annoying, but if you open the message thread with the person or group you had docs / pics / links history with and you click the top of the message on the name or “>” you should see towards the bottom of the “info” tab

”download ….. attachments”

***the “…..” above should be the number of attachments you’ve had in that thread. Attaching a photo. ***

to be clear - I have downloaded all messages from iCloud prior to this and you likely need to be on WiFi for it to work but I am not certain of that. I used this feature all the time on my 16pro and really annoying when it didn’t pop up after updating and getting air. Hope this helps!

[Edited by Moderator]

Last night seems I finally fixed mine. I searched someone’s name in messages and went to the pictures shared with that person. When I selected one it took me to that message in our conversation which happened to be a number of years ago.

I decided to spend time scrolling from then to current day and as I was going it kept loading the pictures in the conversation and now, the next morning, the pictures tab under their contact is there.

It was a little annoying that I had to take the time to scroll through 4 years of a text conversation to get it fixed but so far it seems to have worked. I hope this helps.

I’ve been experiencing the same sporadic behavior with my iPhones for the past three years. Sometimes, it works perfectly, and other times, I lose data. I have 165GB of messages, and I’d say about 80% of my photos are visible in the “Info”/“Photos” tabs. However, there are instances where I send a contact five pictures, and they remain visible in the chat thread but not in the tab. Then, randomly, they become visible on my Mac but not on my iPad. I’ve spent over 100 hours with tech support, and it’s been a complete waste of time. It’s a bug that they just can’t seem to fix. They keep telling me it’s a known issue and to check the next update. I’m beyond frustrated!

The 'Photos' tab feature does still exist, however, it's not visible while the phone indexes them all.

If you don't have any 'Photos' tab, give it some time. I found it took about 48hrs for it to become visible again, though the amount of message photos you have may extend/reduce this time.

If you do have the tab, but it's incomplete (not all pictures shown), open Settings and go to Search > Messages. Turn off both toggles, wait a few seconds, and toggle them back on. The tab will likely be gone again but should reappear within 48hrs, this time displaying all the pictures.

I've found that all of my photos are there if I go back through the text thread, and I do see a photos tab when I click on the information for a specific text thread. However, the photos tab only shows photos from when I upgraded to the new iPhone (17 Pro Max). The rest of the photos are unable to be seen unless I scroll back through the text thread.

Update: so I turn off iCloud on messages and turned it back on and the photos tab finally appeared. Didn't take the first time around. Must be a glitch. Also all the photos & videos from the text messages are all gone, only ones from when my iOS was updated appear now. Not sure what happened

gabrielben wrote:

Also all the photos & videos from the text messages are all gone, only ones from when my iOS was updated appear now. Not sure what happened

If you're missing photos, I've found that going to Settings > Search > Messages and turning both toggles off, then back on, will usually repopulate the Photos tab.

Noaaaaaaah wrote:

Could you please tell me what toggles you’re talking about?

Sure. Open the Settings app, then scroll down to the 'Search' option:

Then, scroll down until you find the 'Messages' option and click that. You should see:

Close the Messages app, turn off both toggles, wait a few moments, then turn them back on and reopen Messages.