Missing photos in iMessage after iOS 26 update

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]

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.

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.

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.

Go to Settings > Your Profile > iCloud > Messages, and turn off “Use on this iPhone” for Messages.

Then go to iPhone Storage > Messages, and delete all Documents and Data.

After that, re-enable Messages in iCloud — your phone will re-download all messages, and the Photos tab with all your pictures will reappear.

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.

The reason the photos tab and documents tab shows up for me is because I have sent docs / photos/ links with this person since I have gotten the phone. Those were the only ones showing up under each tab though.

Additionally - after I restored my new phone from my icloud backup - I also went into my settings > icloud > messages and synched all of them - this process took a couple of days because the phone will pause the synch once you disconnect from wifi automatically and then you will have to go in and resume the synch again manually but then it will pause again if you re-connect to wifi and needs to be manually restarted. I also had 1.2m messages to synch so if you have less - it will likely be a lot quicker. Once that process completed each conversation under the info tab gave me the option to download all of the historical attachments. It is a slow process and will sporadically stop and need to be restarted but it worked for me. I have a lot more conversations to go and will likely take me a long time but everything else i've tried has not worked. only this.

I updated from 16pro running ios 26 (had the same issue when I updated to ios 26 on this device too)

upgraded to air running ios 26 and was able to find this fix

I had this same issue! I bought an iphone 17 with ios26 and the photos tab and everything was gone - it's been a week and I updated this morning to 26.0.1, it was still annoying me but I just restarted my phone and it's all synced up again and the photos, links, documents etc are back in imessage! yay! fingers crossed it works for everyone else!

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.

If you go to settings , iPhone storage, messages,top conversations, find the same message thread and click on it. I see the photos tab exists thru that view but not thru the messages app. 🤯

for the record I do not use messages in iCloud, everything is on the phone.

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.

Same. After updating to 26.0.01 and a reboot all my missing photos in messages are back.

I updated to ios26.0.1. it did not fix the issue.

i watched this video and my messages app shows “syncing with iCloud” at the top. This was not there before. Nor do it say syncing was paused. https://youtu.be/G3NwQO0A3Dk?si=zXiOCUl3AvxWJkT3

i think the steps that worked for me:

settings > messages:

1. disable imessage
2. click back button and wait 10 seconds
3. enable iMessage

force quit messages app

settings > iCloud > messages:

1. disable use on this iPhone
2. i got an alert saying not all messages are downloaded. I clicked “download and disable”
3. wait 10 seconds
4. press back button
5. Select Messages (again)
6. enable Use on this iPhone

I have not confirmed that this has fixed the photos tab issue because it’s not fully synced and is going very slow. But because it shows the syncing progress bar in Messages app, I’m hopeful.

Derrickbell79 wrote:

I’m having the same issue but I do not have download messages under info. I’ve tried resynching. Have any other ideas?

Try going to Settings > Search > Messages and turning both toggles off, then back on. That should trigger an update.

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!