Missing photos in iMessage after iOS 26 update

It's not iOS 26. It's related to an issue between iCloud and iPhone (but not only as I have this partially happening on my Mac too). I've had this issue since my iPhone 14 Pro in 2022, so for generations of iOS have carried this issue for me.

I can confirm that none of these steps have worked for me in the past. I've also done fully clean install:

• Restored to factory settings on a Mac
• Re-installing iOS from Mac
• Not doing a restore from iCloud backup but choosing the "new iPhone" option, which meant manually downloading and reinstalling my hundreds of apps, which took countless hours to re-organise.

There is NOT A SINGLE SOLUTION from Apple Support that's worked for me. Hundreds of hours spent talking to them and trying everything for 4 years. And they still tell me there are no known fix for this at this stage.

It’s not about iCloud, it’s about iPhone storage. The point is to clear the “Documents & Data” in Messages. Without iCloud, messages simply can’t be restored.

After restoring to new iPhones from backup, the Photos tab in iMessage contact info is missing or incomplete.

Steps to Reproduce:

Restore new iPhone from iCloud/iTunes backup.

Open iMessage → select a contact → tap name at top.

Check for Photos tab.

Expected Result:

Photos tab should appear consistently and show the full history of shared photos (hundreds dating back to 2016).

Actual Result:

On some contacts (including mine), the Photos tab is missing entirely.

When it does appear, it only shows a partial set of photos.

Same behavior observed on both my phone and my wife’s, and also reported by other contacts.

I don’t think that’s accurate from the advisor. I have an iPhone 17 Pro with iOS 26 and the photos tab is missing for me. However, I also have a iPhone 16 Pro Max that is updated to iOS 26 and the photo tab is there. Maybe it’s a iPhone 17 issue? I’m not sure why that would matter though

This did not work for me.

I can scroll back in my conversation thread and see the photos. But they don’t appear on the photos tab. It does have all links and documents though. Very strange.

Photos sent after my restoring from backup are visible in photos tab. I was on iOS 18.7 when my initial backup occurred. If people have or don’t have issues, can you put in your comment what phone and version your iCloud backup was.

iPhone 14 Pro, iOS 18.7

-> iPhone 17 pro iOS 26

also, the search idea from a different comment didn’t work for me.

Have been messaging the same person only since updating to iOS 26. When I click on the photos button in their contact in messages it is missing a lot of photos that have been sent. On the info tab there is no attachments to download from iCloud, they are all downloaded.

After the same I found 2 days ago I had a few photos in my text with my wife. maybe 10 of a thousand. After reading your message I looked again and they are all there now. Checked a couple other text strings and they are also there now.

To me, this indicates an undisclosed bug fix in 26.01. I'm happy they are back.

I’m having the same issue. Went to the Apple Store and they completely wiped my phone and updated to the new iOS 26 update saying that it would 99.9% work after that. Still don’t have the photos tab. I’ve tried everything.

Wouldn't doing a backup to iTunes, full phone reset, and iTunes restore accomplish the same thing?

In order to turn iCloud message on, I’d have to send apple money to subscribe to their larger tier of storage to accomplish this, and two my message data is now on their cloud. To be honest I’d be more concern with my data on the cloud than the former.

I’ve tried this multiple times however I haven’t had much success. For me there are a few contacts, which are group chats that I have pinned, where the photos tab shows, and only a few recent photos show but then there’s black boxes. When clicking on them I just get a stock thumbnail that says either HEIC photo or JPEG photo. Clicking on it doesn’t reveal the photo, and share sheet shows blank on those. For a few contacts it only shows like 14 of these blanks where this group definitely has hundred of photos in it.

I took the 26.1 update today and sadly no resolve. iPhone 14 Pro never had this issue until iOS 26. Also I don’t use iCloud storage.

It didn't fully recover for me. In most cases, if no pictures were sent within the last year, the photos tab never came back.

In other cases, the photos tab was there, but did not contain pictures that were older than a year. Or in some cases, did not contain other pictures that were in the chat. I'm still trying to figure out the pattern.

It’s an issue with iPhone, not with the cloud or other devices. So don’t worry about it too much. I’m sure they will fix it soon. The photos tab seems to come and go for me. You can try the fixes people put in this thread but from my experience it doesn’t work. You just have to wait for your phone to sync with the cloud.

It should have NOTHING to do with the cloud. I’ve had Message syncing in the iCloud turned off for 2-3 years now. I have 30GB+ of messages. And never had an issue after transferring between phones over those years.

This was the first year that I’ve ever done a phone to phone transfer. I usually backup and restore from my Mac. But somewhere in this post someone said they had the same issue doing the backup and restore method also. I really think it’s iOS 26 related. Hopefully one of these versions fix it. I usually jump on the beta a pretty early. 26.0 was fear.

[Edited by Moderator]

I just explained that I've had this exact issue since iOS 16, and I've owned every iPhone model since 2008 and never had this issue until 2022. And if you check other threads and forums, countless people have had it over the past years. It's a bug affecting a tiny fraction of users but it's not an iOS 26 issue, since:

1 - People like me have had this issue for years

2 - The majority of iOS 16 users don't have this problem.