One of the very popular messaging apps amongst iOS users is the iMessage. An ecosystem locked messaging app that only works on iPhones. The popular messaging app has been evolving around lately, and Apple keeps on adding new features to the app. However, recently, we have been hearing from a lot of users facing an issue with their message app, where when the user clicks on an image when received, it downloads the image but the picture doesn’t appear.

What happens is that the image ever downloads, and it keeps on a loop, you keep on pressing the tap to download button, but it just doesn’t show up. So, below we have some troubleshooting methods through which you might be able to solve your issue on iMessage, and we hope that you can download images properly, once you have gone through the troubleshooting methods.

Sign in to your Apple ID again

Since the iMessage works on your Apple ID, chances are that the root cause could be the Apple ID. Or, in other words, a corrupt file could be the cause of this issue, so a simple sign out and sign in might fix the issue. As singing out of your Apple ID from iMessage will delete all of those files and then download them again from Apple’s server.

1. Open the Settings app of your iPhone screen and then scroll down until you find Messages.
2. Tap on Send and Recieve option.
3. Tap on the Apple ID used for iMessage should be located at the top of the screen.
4. In the pop-up menu, select the option that says Sign Out.
5. Once you have logged out of your Apple ID from MEssages, now you need to log in again.
6. Tap on Use Your Apple ID for iMessage to sign in again with your Apple Id on iMessage.
   
7. A pop-up menu will appear, where you can sign in using your Apple ID. Tap on the Sign-in button. You will be signed in to iMessage with your Apple ID, now you may check for the issue, whether it’s resolved, if not then you can try the other troubleshooting method below.
   

Check Your MMS Settings

To receive or send images on iMessage, you need to turn on the MMS setting of the Messages app. You might have by chance disabled the MMs settings if it was enabled earlier, you can enable it again by following the steps mentioned below.

1. Go to setttings on your iPhone.
2. Scroll down to Message option.
3. Click on it and inside that, you will see a SMS/MMS tab, and inside that there is an option to change MMS Messaging.
4. You can see a toggle key that is turned off. If it is on, you will see the toggle as green colour. You can turn it off and then turn it back to on.

Reset Network Settings of your iPhone

Since all these instant messaging apps work on the internet, if the above solution doesn’t fix your issue, then it could be due to your network. In that case, we will try to reset the network settings of your iPhone to fix the issue. Below we have the steps to reset the networks settings of your iPhone.

1. Go to the Settings app on your iPhone.
2. Then go to general settings.
3. Scroll down to the end of the general page to find out the reset option.
4. Tap on the Reset Network settings inside the reset options.
5. You will have to enter the iPhone’s passcode or the password of your Apple ID.
6. Once you have entered the passcode, iPhone will prompt for a final confirmation of resetting the network settings of your iPhone. you need to tap on reset network Settings and it will confirm the process of resetting the network settings. Once the reset process completes your iPhone will be restarted.

Do note that if you reset the network settings of your iPhone, it would reset all of your cellular and WiFi settings and will restore them to their factory defaults. This also includes all of the saved Wifi networks on your iPhone, so you need to know the password of the WiFi with which your iPhone is connected, so that after reset you will be able to connect to the WiFi again.

The above steps should resolve the iMessage image downloading issue, once you have performed the above troubleshooting steps, you may ask your friend to send an image on iMessage, and you should check if you’re able to download the images and view them properly or not. If it isn’t fixed yet, then it could be that the fault is in that particular image, or there is a faulty network setting on your friend’s side. Alternatively, you can also try to reset your iPhone using iTunes, that might fix the issue.

it could also be a bug from Apple’s servers or it might be a bug in the current OS version, so you might need to wait for Apple to release another iOS version, which will address the issue and fixes it.