Why You Can't Send Pictures via SMS on Android (and How to Fix It)

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If you own an Android phone, you’ve probably had this happen to you: you take the perfect photo, find a hilarious GIF or meme, and want to share it with your family or friends. However, when you hit send to share it via text message, nothing happens. You try to troubleshoot the problem. Maybe you change a few settings or restart your phone, hoping for a quick fix, but nothing seems to work. Even the best Android phones for people who love taking photos can run into this frustrating problem.

While some people turn to third-party messaging apps like WhatsApp for an enhanced messaging experience, many of us still rely on text messages to communicate with at least some of our contacts. There could be a number of issues at play when you can’t send a message on your Android phone or it won’t send pictures, including connectivity issues and incorrect message settings. If you’re facing this issue, you’ll want to fix it quickly, and luckily, there are a few simple fixes you can try.

Why You Can’t Send Pictures via SMS on Android

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If you’re not connected to the internet, you won’t be able to text photos to your contacts on Android. While this may seem obvious, sometimes you may not realize that your phone has lost its connection. Factors like low signal strength, limited data, or a bad Wi-Fi connection can pause your phone’s ability to text photos.

If you don’t have a stable internet connection, you’ll have trouble sending and receiving photos via SMS. You can check your phone’s connection to Wi-Fi and your cellular network in the upper-right corner of your phone. If you notice that the icons indicate a weak or no connection, this could be the reason why your photos aren’t sending. You can try moving to an area with better reception, reconnecting to Wi-Fi or your cellular network, turning airplane mode on and off, or restarting your phone to get everything working again.

It’s also important to note that Android uses two messaging systems to send pictures: MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) and the more advanced RCS (Rich Communication Services). You won’t be able to send pictures via SMS unless you have one of these features enabled on your phone. You’ll also have to abide by the file size limit for MMS text messages, which is 300 KB. You also need to have mobile data enabled to send MMS messages. You can send higher-quality pictures over Wi-Fi with RCS, but both you and the person you’re messaging must have RCS enabled on your phones, and it must be supported by both of your mobile carriers.

How to Fix Problems Sending Pictures via SMS on Android

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Before you do anything else, you’ll need to confirm that you’ve enabled MMS and/or RCS in your messaging app. Follow these steps to check your MMS settings in Google Messages:

Open Google Messages.
Tap your profile picture in the upper right corner of the screen.
Tap the gear icon to open message settings.
Activate the MMS Options button.

Follow these steps to check your RCS settings in Google Messages:

Open Google Messages.
Tap your profile picture in the upper right corner of the screen.
Select Message Settings and tap General.
Tap on RCS Chats and toggle the Enable RCS Chats button.

Once you have enabled MMS and RCS messaging, you can switch between the two depending on your network availability and the size of the images you are sending. If you are still unable to send messages after enabling MMS and RCS, corrupted data in the Messages app may be causing the issues. Clearing the app’s cache or data may help fix the problem. To do this, go to Settings > Apps > Messages > Storage, and then clear the cache and data.

If your MMS settings are not configured correctly or your network settings are corrupted, resetting your network and access point name (APN) settings may resolve the issue.

Follow these steps to reset APN settings:

Open the Settings app.
Tap SIM, then scroll down and tap Access Point Names.
Tap the three vertical dots in the right corner of the screen.
Select Reset to default settings.

If you’re still unable to send pictures via SMS after following all the steps above, you can try restarting your phone, reinstalling Messages app updates, or as a last resort, performing a full factory reset.