Top 7 Ways to Fix Android Won't Send Picture Messages Issue

Have you tried to send a family photo by SMS to your grandmother who does not use a smartphone but to no avail? Is your Android smartphone unable to send MMS to contacts? We have compiled helpful troubleshooting tips that can get your device back to sending photo messages in no time.

First, check that you have sufficient balance / funds on your SIM card / account. Telecom charges a certain amount to deliver the MMS to the recipient (s). And sending multimedia messages is generally more expensive than regular text-only text messages. Confirm your operator’s MMS charges and make sure you have enough balance to cover the cost of the photo message (s) you want to send. Restarting your device can also resolve the issue. Otherwise, go to the solutions listed below.

1. Activate data connection

Data connectivity is an important prerequisite for sending photo messages to Android devices. If your smartphone refuses to send or receive MMS, check that the data connection is active and activated on your device. If you’re using Wi-Fi, temporarily turn off Wi-Fi and use cellular data. You cannot send MMS via Wi-Fi, so you need to make sure you have an active cell / mobile data plan.

You can activate the cellular connection from the notification panel or from the Android settings menu. Go to Settings> Network & Internet and turn on mobile data.

If you’re using mobile data, but Android still won’t send photo messages, turn off mobile data on your device and turn it back on. If that doesn’t work, continue to the following troubleshooting tips below.

2. Force stop messages

Forcing a stop of the messaging application that refuses to send picture messages can also help solve this problem. Follow the steps below to do so.

Step 1: Launch Settings and select “Applications and notifications”.

2nd step: Then select All apps.

Step 3: Scroll to the bottom of the page and select your email application.

Step 4: Tap the Force Stop icon and tap OK when prompted.

This will close the messaging application. Relaunch the app and check if you can now send photo messages.

3. Allow unlimited use of data

Your device may experience problems sending images and other types of multimedia files via Messages if there is a restriction preventing it from using cellular data, both in the foreground and in the background.

You must ensure that the Messages application has access to the background data. Likewise, you must also configure the application to use data without restriction when Data Saver is activated. To do this, open Settings> Applications & notifications> All applications> Messages> Mobile and Wi-Fi data. Now switch to both background data and “Unrestricted use of data”.

4. Clear the application cache and data

If your Android smartphone is not sending photo messages, it may be due to a cache issue with the messaging app. You need to clear the application cache and check if it fixes the error. If this is not the case, proceed to erase the data of the application. To do this, go to Settings> Apps & notifications> All apps> Messages> Storage & cache> Clear the cache.

Then tap Clear Storage to delete the app data and tap OK when prompted.

Note: Clearing the message storage will delete conversations in the app. It is recommended that you erase application data as a last resort if all of the troubleshooting fixes listed below do not resolve it.

5. Update the Messages app

Your Android could fail multimedia messages if there is a bug in the Messages app. Since app updates are usually accompanied by bug fixes, you should update the Messages app on your device if you are not using the latest version.

Go to Settings> Applications & notifications> All applications> Messages and select Application details. Tap the Update button on the Messages app page to update the app.

Otherwise, tap the Update Messages button below to open the Messages app page directly from the Google Play Store.

Update messages (Google Play Store)

6. Reset network settings

Your Android device may have a problem sending multimedia messages if your device’s network settings are not configured correctly. To resolve this issue, reset the network settings on your phone.

To do this, go to Settings> System> Advanced> Reset options and select “Reset Wi-Fi, mobile and Bluetooth”. Press the Reset Settings button to continue.

Note that this will clear all preferences previously configured for cellular data, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth from your device. Check out our guide to find out what happens when you reset network settings on Android.

7. Update Android

Updating your device to the latest version of the Android operating system could also help resolve this issue. Go to Settings> System> Advanced> System Update and press the “Check for Update” button.

Download and install all available updates and check if that fixes the problem with the Messages app.