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"!" "cannot download photo" error messages when trying to view old photos...

i am trying to view old photos and videos on my iphone, but i am getting error messages (see attachments).


these are from 2 years ago, so i guess that my iphone is not able to pull them down from the icloud. something is stuck. i'm on wifi but it just refuses to let me view or edit certain video/photos.


how can i solve this issue? 😕




User uploaded fileUser uploaded fileUser uploaded file

iPhone X, iOS 12

Posted on Oct 17, 2018 3:54 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 31, 2018 5:46 AM

this is still going on. i have an iphoneX with tons of available storage, so why can't i open my old photos?


yesterday i tried to send some old photos to someone, and it just said it was "unable to share".


incredibly frustrating. all this money spent for something that does not work 😕

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7 replies

Oct 17, 2018 1:09 PM in response to Abstractman23

Do you have "Optimized Storage" enabled for settings > iCloud > Photos?

In that case there are two common, possible reasons for this behavior.

  • Either you are running out of storage in iCloud - check your iCloud storage.
  • Or you have so many photos in iCloud, that even the optimized versions do no longer fit onto your iPhone.

In either case you need to free storage in iCloud. Do not keep more photos and videos in iCloud than will fit in iCloud and on your Mac, at least optimized.

Oct 21, 2018 4:08 PM in response to léonie

thanks for your reply, always appreciate your input. 🙂


everything is updated as far as i can tell.


the interesting thing - now - is that i can open the 2nd attachment video i posted above ("!" download error).

whereas on numerous other old photos it's still giving me a download error message.


so that tells me that icloud/iphone is still working behind the scenes to update/sync things - even though according to the phone everything is up to date.


this is a brand new 256gb iphoneX, so things should be faster than this? i shouldn't have to wait days to be able to open an old video. the whole thing seems a bit strange to me. 😕


it's not very helpful how apple have done this...

Oct 31, 2018 11:28 AM in response to Abstractman23

How are you using iCloud Photo Library on your iPhone?

My iPhone X has been acting similar to yours and refused to use the available storage on the iPhone in favor of downloading most files from iCloud. Finally I used brute force and switched change the setting n the iPhone X for

My name > iCloud > Photos

I disabled "Optimize Storage" and enabled "Download and keep originals" instead. This will work, if you take care to keep no more photos and videos in iCloud than will fit onto your iPhone. I keep the system photo library on my Mac small, so all photos and videos in iCloud can by copied to the iPhone.

"!" "cannot download photo" error messages when trying to view old photos...

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