Texting on any platform is very much incomplete if it doesn’t support GIFs. These days GIFs are an integral part of texting, be it on WhatsApp, iMessage, telegram or any other app. People have now gradually shifted from emojis to GIFs to express their emotions.

In such scenarios, if the GIF search doesn’t work it can be frustrating for us. If you are facing the GIF search failure on iMessage on your iOS device and haven’t been able to fix it. Then don’t worry we got you covered; we have a complete guide on how you can fix the GIF search on iMessages on your iPhone.

Re-Add #Images to iMessage

The very basic solution if the GIF search isn’t working on your iPhone, is to add the #Images app to the iMessage apps again. # Image is a built-in app for iMessage that lets users find, search and send GIFs to others. Below we have a quick tutorial on how to re-add the #Images app to iMessage.

1. You can open the messaging app and then go to any conversation.
2. Scroll right on the iMessage app bar and then tap on the App Drawer.
   
3. Next, you need to tap on the Edit option located at the top right corner of the screen.
   
4. Simply, turn off the toggle for #Images and then turn it on again after a couple of seconds. Or you can simply close the iMessage app from the app switcher and then re-open and enable the toggle.
   
5. In case, the #Images app is added to your favourites, then you will have to first remove it from favourites only then you will get the toggle.
6. Tap on the delete icon from the top left of the app and then tap on Remove from favourites. Tap on Done to remove it.
7. that’s it, this might have fixed the GIF search issue from the #Images app on iMessage.

Enable Cellular/ Mobile Data for Hashtag Images

First, you can try to search the GIFs while your iPhone is connected to WIFI, if it is working, but isn’t working while searching from mobile data, then the fix for the same is right below.

1. On your iPhone Go to the settings app and then tap on the Cellular Data ( Mobile Data).
   
2. Next, scroll down to the list of apps using mobile data. Here, you need to find the app named HashtagImages, and double-check if the data toggle is enabled for it. If it isn’t, you need to make sure to turn on the toggle.
3. Now, go to iMessage and try using the GIF search again, it should start working with mobile data as well.
   

Reset All Settings on iPhone

In case, the above tutorial didn’t work for you, or you weren’t able to execute the tutorial because the HashtagImages app wasn’t available in the list. Then a reset to all of the settings of your iPhone might fix the issue. It will also probably bring back the HashtagImages app to the list of cellular data settings. To reset all the settings of your iPhone, follow the tutorial below.

1. Go to the Settings app on your iPhone.
   
2. Scroll down and then select the General option.
   
3. Inside the General settings, you can scroll down to find the reset button, this should be at the end of the page, tap on it once you find it.
   
4. On the next screen, select the reset All Settings option.

This will reset all of the settings of your iPhone, and you might need to restore all of your iCloud data, wallet, Find my iPhone and Wi-Fi settings after the reset. On the other hand, there are chances that it might fix the problem that you are facing.

Use Giphy GIF Search

If you don’t want to reset all of the settings of your iPhone, or if it didn’t fix your problem, then there is an alternative app to the HashtagImages app for iMessage, that works similar to it. Switching to a different GIF app can be a perfect solution for you.

As hashtag images aren’t the only app available for iPhones to use GIFs, there are several other apps as well.

Our recommendation would be to try the Giphy app. It is another very popular GIF app on the internet which is used widely by a lot of people from different regions. The good thing is that the app is available for the iMessage keyboard in the App store.

To add the app to your iMessage, you need to go to the App store inside the iMessage. You can do so, by following the tutorial below.

1. You can start by opening any active conversations in the Messages app and then above the keyboard, from the toolbar tap on the App Store logo.
   
2. Now, search for the Giphy app inside the App Store and then tap on install it. This should install the Giphy app inside the iMessage app bar.
3. You can use the Giphy app inside the message in the same way as you used to use the hashtag image app to search and send GIFs to your contacts.
   
4. To launch the Giphy app, you can tap on the app from the iMessage app bar and then tap on the search box inside the Giphy interface, after which you can start searching for GIFs right away.
   

Conclusion

GIFs play an important part while texting, and if the GIF search stops working, it can be a bit frustrating and annoying. Fortunately, there are serval different fixes for the problem and we have discussed quite a few, we hope to solve your problem with the above-provided solutions.