Is Your iPhone Not Sending Pictures? Here’s How to Fix It

When your iPhone isn’t sending picture messages it can be incredibly frustrating. After all, nowadays we communicate with friends and family via iMessages littered with memes and photos of what we had for dinner last night.

Whether you’ve got the best iPhone available, like the iPhone 16 Pro Max, or an older device like the iPhone SE, bugs can often impact your ability to send pictures. When this happens, the iPhone says Not Delivered with the red exclamation point inside the circle, or your photos get stuck halfway through sending and never finish.

It’s good to know how to fix these issues if your iPhone ever has issues with sending pictures.

Here’s how to fix your iPhone not sending pictures.

What You Need to Know Before We Start Troubleshooting

To figure out why your iPhone won’t send pictures, we first need to answer two questions below. Don’t worry—I’ll guide you through both!

1. Are Pictures Not Sending via iMessage or Regular Text Messages?

Whenever you send a text or picture message on your iPhone, it’s delivered as either an iMessage or a regular text message. In the Messages app, iMessages appear in blue bubbles, while text messages show up in green bubbles.

Although they work seamlessly together in the Messages app, iMessages and text messages rely on different technologies to send pictures. iMessages use Wi-Fi or the wireless data plan from your carrier. On the other hand, text/picture messages use the carrier’s text messaging plan.

When your iPhone can’t send pictures, the issue is typically with iMessages or text messages, but rarely both. For instance, your iPhone might send pictures using iMessages but fail to send them using text messages—or vice versa. Even if both are affected, we’ll troubleshoot each separately.

To determine the problem, open the Messages app and look at a conversation with someone you can’t send pictures to.

• If previous messages appear in blue, your iPhone isn’t sending pictures via iMessage.
• If they’re in green, your iPhone isn’t sending pictures through your text messaging plan.

2. Are Pictures Not Sending to One Person or Everyone?

Once you’ve identified whether the problem lies with iMessages or text messages, the next step is figuring out if it’s affecting one person or everyone. Here’s how:

Try sending a test picture to someone else, but keep this in mind:

Send the test picture to someone who uses the same messaging method as the person you’re having trouble with. For example:

• If you can’t send pictures via iMessage to someone, test by sending a picture to another iMessage user (blue bubbles).
• If you’re having trouble with text/picture messages, test by sending a picture to another text message user (green bubbles).

Rule of thumb:

• If pictures won’t send to just one person, the issue is likely on their end—they may need to adjust settings on their iPhone or contact their carrier.
• If pictures won’t send to anyone, the problem is on your end.

I’ll provide solutions for both scenarios below!

If Your iPhone Won’t Send Pictures Using iMessage

1. Check Your Internet Connection

Your iPhone needs an internet connection in order to send pictures through iMessage. If you are using Wi-Fi, open Settings and tap Wi-Fi. Make sure the switch next to Wi-Fi is on and a checkmark appears next to the name of your Wi-Fi network.

If Wi-Fi is already on, try turning it off and back on again. This can sometimes fix minor connectivity issues. Check out our other article if your iPhone won’t connect to Wi-Fi!

If you are using Cellular Data, open Settings and tap Cellular. Make sure the switch next to Cellular Data is on.

If Cellular Data is already on, try turning it off and back on again. This allows your iPhone to get a fresh connection to your wireless carrier’s network, which can sometimes fix minor connectivity problems. Check out our other article if your Cellular Data isn’t working on your iPhone.

2. Does The Other Person Have iMessage Turned On?

Keep in mind that an iMessage failure can be caused by a problem with your iPhone — or with the person you’re trying to contact.

Is iMessage failing with only one iPhone user or with every iPhone user you text with? If necessary, send a picture using iMessage to several people and see whether the problem is limited to one person or to everyone. It’s possible that his or her phone number is still registered as an iPhone in Apple’s database, and so iPhones try to send that phone iMessages rather than MMS texts. The solution? Ask the other person to follow this link to Apple’s support page where they can deregister their phone number from Apple’s iMessage by sending themselves a text message and typing in a confirmation code online.

3. Reset Network Settings

Issues with network connectivity can also cause problems with sending pictures, and often times restoring your iPhone’s network settings back to factory defaults can resolve network connectivity issues. To reset your iPhone network settings, go to Settings -> General -> Transfer or Reset iPhone -> Reset and tap Reset Network Settings.

A word of warning: Before you do this, make sure you know your Wi-Fi passwords, because Reset Network Settings will erase all of the saved Wi-Fi networks on your iPhone. After your iPhone reboots, you’ll have to re-enter your Wi-Fi passwords at home and at work. Your iPhone’s APN and VPN settings will also be reset to factory defaults.

If Your iPhone Won’t Send Pictures Using Your Text / Picture Messaging Plan

1. Make Sure MMS Messaging Is Turned On

All iPhones supports MMS, which is a simplified way to send a text message via a cellular network. If you have MMS disabled on your iPhone, you won’t be able to send pictures.

1. Open the Settings app,.
2. Tap Apps.
3. Tap Messages.
4. Turn on MMS Messaging.

2. Turn on Low Quality Image Mode

When sending photos over MMS, your carrier may set size limits for attachments. Larger files may take more time to send, and your iPhone can compress photo attachments when necessary. If you experience an issue when you try to send full size images, you can manually send lower quality images. Here’s how:

1. Open the Settings app,.
2. Tap Apps.
3. Tap Messages.
4. Turn on Low Quality Image Mode.

3. Check For A Carrier Settings Update

Our next step when iPhone won’t send pictures is to check for a carrier settings update. Apple and your wireless carrier release updates in order to help your iPhone connect to your wireless carrier’s network more efficiently.

Usually when a carrier settings update is available, you’ll receive a pop-up on your iPhone that says "Carrier Settings Update". Whenever this pop-up appears on your iPhone, always tap Update.

You can manually check for a carrier settings update by going to Settings -> General -> About. If a carrier settings update is available, a pop-up will appear on your display within 15 seconds. If no pop-up appears, there probably isn’t a carrier settings update available, so let’s move onto the next step.

4. Contact Your Wireless Carrier

You’ll want to contact your wireless carrier if your iPhone still won’t send pictures. To get ahold of your carrier’s support team, type their name and “customer support” into Google.

Alternatively, some carriers also have X accounts dedicated to customer support. Wireless carriers monitor their social media support accounts closely, and it may be the fastest way to get help with your iPhone.

If Your iPhone Still Won’t Send Pictures

This guide has you covered for troubleshooting the problem if your iPhone is not sending pictures.

While we’ve tried our best to cover the solution there is also the possibility that the issues are related to the person you’re trying to contact. If this is the case, send this guide to them so they can follow the steps above.

With these tools, you should be able to fix your iPhone not sending pictures. If not, you may need to contact Apple Support or head to your local Apple Store for some troubleshooting.