iPhone won't send picture texts to Android phones

Hello ,

Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.

To troubleshoot your issue of not being able to MMS, please follow the troubleshooting below:

To resolve issues with sending and receiving MMS, follow these steps

1. Go to Settings and turn airplane mode off.
2. Go to Settings > Messages and turn MMS Messaging on.
3. Go to Settings > Cellular and turn Cellular Data on.
4. Go to Settings > Cellular and turn Data Roaming on if you're roaming on a cellular provider network that is different from your billing provider's network.
5. Make sure that you have a cellular data connection in the status bar of your iPhone.
6. Go to Settings and turn Wi-Fi off. Open Safari and navigate to www.apple.com to verify that you have a data connection. Turn Wi-Fi back on to continue using Wi-Fi for other features. If your cellular data connection isn't available, follow these steps.
7. Make sure that you can send and receive SMS. If you can't send and receive SMS, see the "Issues with sending and receiving SMS" section, above. MMS might not be available while you're on a call. Only 3G and faster GSM networks support simultaneous data and voice calls. Learn more about which network your phone supports.
8. Restart your iPhone.
9. Tap Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings on your iPhone.
10. Remove your SIM card and insert it again.

If you still can't send or receive MMS, follow these steps

1. Make sure that the contact trying to message you isn't blocked in Settings > Messages > Blocked.
2. Go to Settings > Messages and turn on group messaging if you're sending a group message.
3. Make sure that you're using the area code with the contact's phone number. When you send messages internationally, you also need the contact's international code.
4. If you're using a "Pay as you go" MMS plan, make sure it has enough available balance. If you're unsure of your MMS plan or available balance, contact your carrier.
5. If the issue occurs with a specific contact or contacts, back up or forward important messages and delete your current messaging threads with the contact. Create a new message to the contact and try again.
6. If the issue occurs with a specific contact or contacts, delete and recreate the contact from the Contacts app. Send a new message to the new contact.
7. Back up and restore your iPhone as new.
8. If your carrier has recently ported your phone number, the porting process might not be complete. Contact your carrier to confirm that the porting process is complete.
9. Contact your carrier to verify that you're provisioned to send SMS and are in an area with cellular coverage.
10. Contact your carrier to verify that there aren't blocks or filters on your wireless account preventing you from sending SMS.
11. Your carrier might require modified APN settings to use MMS.

iOS: Troubleshooting Messages

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2755

Take care,

Alex H.

Lauren.Morgan wrote:

I found a pretty simple way to solve the apple to android problem. When sending photos, just turn on your cellular data until the photo is delivered and then you can turn off your data. The photo should send pretty quickly and it’s super simple.

Yes, cellular data does need to be enabled in order to send MMS messages.

All my settings were on correctly i.e. SMS/MMS, cellular data, etc., but resetting network setting seems to be the fix so far for me on iPhone 8. I was able to send a pic, both Live Photo and non-Live Photo immediately, where it had been timing out before.

Tap Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings on your iPhone

Sjeanie91 wrote:

Hi, I literally had the same problem and it wasn’t an Apple issue at all or my carrier issue. If you go to settings, then go to general, then go to about....you may be prompted to “update your carrier settings.” Update it and the problem will be resolved.

If it required a carrier update to resolve, it was indeed a carrier issue. Verizon did recently have a problem with iPhones sending video to non-Apple devices and resolved it with a carrier update. Given that this thread goes back more than three years, it's probably not the answer for everyone. This sort of problem usually has multiple causes.

Glad your phone is working correctly again.

Well...I may have stumbled on the issue that is causing this problem for everyone. When your iphone reboots (which it will do every time there is an IOS update, or you reboot manually), the Iphone changes the Cellular Data APN to "alpha" which I am guessing is the IOS default. So, you have to go to your cellular settings, and change just the cellular data APN (it doesn't seem to change anything else in the cellular settings.....just that one item) back to the correct APN but DON'T REBOOT. I just realized that every time my Iphone rebooted, the cellular APN changed back to "alpha" which is not the correct APN for my cellular service. So, hopefully that is the issue and the fix for everyone having this problem!

I found a pretty simple way to solve the apple to android problem. When sending photos, just turn on your cellular data until the photo is delivered and then you can turn off your data. The photo should send pretty quickly and it’s super simple.

Easy fix:

Turn off WiFi and use cellular to send the image and it'll work.

I had the same problem. Followed all the steps with no luck.

I had an iOS update waiting to be installed. I updated. Problem solved.

I had the same problem when I switched/ditched iPhone--iphone users couldn't send me pics on my new Android. Had them delete all of our previous message strings and remove me as a contact. Then set me up as a new contact and I could then get pics. It seems that once someone has you as an iMessage contact it never really updates despite me turning of iMessage weeks ahead of the switch. Also, from experience the online iMessage deregistration doesn't work very fast---like months before it is resolved.

In order to send a video to someone using an Android phone, you need to have an active cellular data connection.

Also, what did your carrier say when you called them to make sure that your account was still set up properly?

Did you contact your carrier and make sure that your account is set up for MMS messaging? Even if it was before, sometimes things happen.

Did you go to Settings>Messages>MMS and make sure that it's turned on?\

Do you have an active cellular data connect?

hiltonhilton wrote:

Well...I may have stumbled on the issue that is causing this problem for everyone. When your iphone reboots (which it will do every time there is an IOS update, or you reboot manually), the Iphone changes the Cellular Data APN to "alpha" which I am guessing is the IOS default.

People using a supported carrier won't have access to the APN. People who are using an unsupported carrier will frequently have problems such as you describe.

Popak wrote:

Easy fix:

Turn off WiFi and use cellular to send the image and it'll work.

MMS never uses WiFi. There's no need to turn it off.

I have an iPhone 7 that recently started into not being able to send pictures to Android phones. The only thing that I found to work, was to simply go into settings>messages>turn off iMessage

Hi, I literally had the same problem and it wasn’t an Apple issue at all or my carrier issue. If you go to settings, then go to general, then go to about....you may be prompted to “update your carrier settings.” Update it and the problem will be resolved.