How to Fix iMessage Not Downloading Images

How to Fix iMessage Not Downloading Images

Apple users who upgrade to other iOS devices face one problem: The iMessage feature on their device stops downloading pictures. This frustrating error means that you won’t be able to view photos from family and friends. Fortunately, there are several ways to solve this problem.

This article will explain why your pictures won’t download in iMessage and reveal the best solutions.

Why Pictures Won’t Download in iMessage

If your images won’t download in iMessage, you have a problem to solve. Firstly, pictures may not download in iMessage due to lack of storage space. Second, you may accidentally delete photos while freeing up space on your iPhone.

If the iMessage app is available, you may experience iOS update errors or slow Wi-Fi and internet connection.

How to Overcome Images Not Downloading on iMessage

You have to troubleshoot the problem first to find out why it happened.

Restart iMessage

A recent iOS update may have stopped the iMessage app from working. This is a foregone conclusion if you don’t restart iMessage. The good news is that you can refresh iMessage:

Visit the “Settings” menu.
Touch “Messages” to move to “Send & Receive”.
Sign out of Apple ID.
Sign in to your Apple ID after waiting a while.

Check Your Network Settings

Maybe your pictures stopped downloading in iMessage because your iPhone network is bad. To rule this out, follow these steps:

Access the “Settings” menu.
Press “General” to choose between “Transfer” and “Reset iPhone.”
Select “Reset” and open “Reset Network Settings.”
Type in your iPhone passcode.
Tap “Reset Network Settings” to verify.
Go to the “Settings menu” again and click on “Wi-Fi.” Select your current network and type in your password.
Now open iMessage and refresh it. Wait and see if the images will load.

Clear Internal Storage

Pictures may not load in iMessage if your iPhone doesn’t have enough storage. The best solution for this problem is to remove apps that you don’t use. Additionally, browse the files in storage to determine which files you don’t need.

Or, transfer most of your files to an external storage disk. This simple action can free up space on your phone.

Open the “Settings” menu.
Scroll down and click “General.”
Scroll down to “iPhone Storage.”
Check if the app is using the maximum storage space.
Tap on this app and select “Delete App”.
Also, click on the “Photos” app and delete the pictures and videos that are taking up the maximum storage space. Next, open the “Messages” app and check if it can download the images.

Turn on iMessage

Could it be that you accidentally disconnected the iMessage app? If some settings are off, iMessage might not work properly. Therefore, switch it like this:

Open the “Settings” application.
Find “Messages”and touch it.
Turn on the iMessage app.

Repair Corrupt Cache Files

If the iMessage cache file is corrupted, images cannot be loaded. If you try clearing cache files, you can see if the problem is fixed. Apple doesn’t have a direct method to clear cache files. However, you can try these steps and see what happens:

Open the “Settings” menu.
Tap “General.”
Click “iCloud Storage & Storage” then select “Manage Storage.”
Tap “Messages” and hit “Delete App.”
Now download iMessage App from Apple Store and install it again.

Recover Images From iCloud

After updating iOS to version 16, you may notice that old pictures are no longer in iMessage. You can open iCloud to check if there are certain errors and traces of your old photos.

Here’s what you need to do:

Sign in to your iCloud account using your ID. Go to “Messages” and move up to click on the info button.
Scroll to the bottom of the window labeled “View All Links”.
iCloud may display the number of images stored. Under this number, click “Download”.

Check Multimedia Messaging System

MMS helps you send or receive photos, videos, podcasts and other files using text messages. If you can’t view pictures in iMessage, there may be something wrong with your MMS settings. For example, you may have accidentally disabled it, making it difficult to download photos in iMessage.

Here’s how to find out:

Open the “Settings” app on your iPhone.
Select “Messages” and scroll down.
Click “MMS Messages” and browse to see if it is on or off. Open the MMS application if it is not active.

Language and Region

If you live outside of countries such as UK, US, Australia, Canada, Germany, France and Singapore, the photo download feature from iMessage may not work. To make sure you get images in your country, you can change the language and region settings:

Open the “Settings” application.
Move to “General”, then click “Language & Address”. Now set the appropriate region.
Open an iMessage message and click the “…” at the bottom. Select “Edit” near the top left corner. Finally, find #images. Select your current region and swipe to the left side. Now select “Remove from Favorites” and tap on “Done”. Deactivate iMessage app and Refresh image option.

How to Take Pictures on iMessage Without Backup

You may have accidentally deleted a photo and don’t have a backup. This can happen when trying to upgrade the iOS version. Without a backup, data recovery software is your only hope to recover your iMessage photos. Choose the best type for iPhone.

With the best tools, like iBeesoft Data Recovery Toolfollow these steps to recover your image:

Connect your iPhone to your Mac or Windows PC using a USB cable.
Visit the official page of your favorite data recovery tool.
Choose to download files for Windows or Mac.
Install and run the data recovery software tool.
Select “Restore from iOS” and tap on “Scan.” Move to the left pane and select the images you want to restore. Click “Restore” to save these photos.

FAQs

How to recover deleted photos from iMessage?

You can only recover deleted photos with special data recovery tools. Follow the simple instructions to recover deleted pictures. Since many data recovery tools exist, choose the one that is suitable for iPhone. The same tool can also help you to recover data from iTunes.

How to prevent images from downloading in iMessage in the future?

Make sure the iMessage app is always on to download pictures. Avoid slow internet speeds to help iMessage complete the download process. Make sure your phone has sufficient internal storage then use iTunes and iCloud to back up.

View All Images in iMessage

Many Apple device users are experiencing the image not showing in iMessage error after updating their iOS. Luckily, there are data recovery methods to help you fix the problem. If you can’t recover deleted photos with specialized software, try and forget about them and move on. Chances are, the photos cannot be recovered.

Have your pictures failed to load in iMessage before? Are there any tips and hints in this article that will help you recover it? Let us know in the comments section below.

Disclaimer: Some pages on this site may include affiliate links. This does not affect our editorial in any way.

Send to Someone

Lost Device