How to access all photos shared via iMessage on iPhone in iOS 26

Learn how to view all photos and videos sent and received in an iMessage conversation on your iPhone or iPad in iOS 26.

Unlike WhatsApp, which creates an album in the Photos app and stores all photos and videos you receive in one convenient spot, Apple’s Messages doesn’t do this or anything similar. As a result, you can’t view all photos and videos from all your conversations in one convenient spot. But you can view all photos and videos of a particular conversation in one spot.

View all photos and videos shared in a message conversation

1. Open the Messages app and go to a conversation.
2. Tap the person’s name or contact information from the top.
3. Go to the Photos tab. You won’t see this option unless you’ve exchanged photos or videos.
4. Tap the three lines icon from the bottom and select All to see all photos, videos, and screenshots sent and received in this chat.

You can also go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage > Messages > Photos to see individual photos categorized by date. But this is highly unintuitive and not a good way to view all photos sent and received by Messages.

Secondly, some (but not all) photos shared with you in Messages may also appear in the Photos app. Just open the app and tap your profile picture to find a “Shared with You” section.

If you don’t see all the photos shared with a person in Messages

1) Take a moment to reflect on whether you manually deleted some photos from the chat. If those photos were important, ask the person to resend them.

2) Some old photos that are saved on Apple’s servers will only show in the Messages app if you’re connected to the Internet via Wi-Fi or cellular data.

3) If you have recently set up your new iPhone 17 or updated to iOS 26, give a few days for your device to index all files. Leaving the iPhone locked, connected to Wi-Fi, and plugged in to charge overnight will help.

4) Some people on Apple’s Community forum have shared that turning the toggles off and back on in iOS Settings > Search > Messages may help.

5) Update to the latest version of iOS 26.

6) Restart your iPhone.

7) Finally, if you still don’t see all your photos shared in an iMessages conversation, then chances are this is because of syncing issues. If you use iCloud Messages, go to iPhone Settings > Apple Account name > iCloud > Messages and tap Sync Now.

In case this doesn’t help, turn off Use on this iPhone, restart your iPhone, and enable Use on this iPhone again.

You can also sign out of your Apple Account and then sign back in to resync all messages, including old photos.

Also, check out: How to change iMessage chat background on Apple devices

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2025/11/07/view-all-photos-sent-via-messages-iphone/