After I update to iOS 26 I noticed many photos in the chat are missing in iMessages. Is there anything I should do and anybody facing the same?
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
Original Title: Missing photos in iMessages
iPhone 16 Pro, iOS 26
That is due to me having sent docs / photos / links since I got the phone. However those are the only ones that showed up. In order to get the full history back I restored the new phone from the icloud backup.
After that - still no photos tab with all photos dating back to 2015. I then went to settings > tapped my name at the very top > icloud > messages > sync now. This can take a while depending on how many messages you have saved in icloud and how long you have it set to save them for and the sync process for me took a few days to complete and required me to check multiple times a day because it will pause randomly for some reason. Once the sync was completed. I started to see the option to download the historical attachments under the info tab in each conversation.
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!
So I’ve literally tried everything that was mentioned. So how do I get my photos back from iMessages that were sent?! How do I have it so photos up up as an option in my iMessages??!!! Anyone
I’ve called Apple and everything and have yet to get a response so. Have you gotten a response?
iOS 26.2.1 software update released today still doesn’t fix this issue.
Yes after iOS 26 update I am missing photos in iMessage
How do you delete all documents and data?
Installed iOS 26.3 today and this iMessage photo gallery bug is still
not fixed!!
What is with Apple taking so long to fix a bug that affects so many users?
haw can I get old photos from messenger back
Installed 26.4 today. The iMessage photo gallery bug is still NOT fixed. Once again I tried all the things to see if doing them all again would fix it. It doesn’t.
This is so frustrating.
I’m in disbelief! Apple just doesn’t seem to care about this issue. So sick of it.
How is 26.6 for everyone. I seem to be good
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.
Missing photos in iMessage after iOS 26 update
