Ashley Wright
Users can now send photos iPhone in low quality mode, conserving data and battery usage via a new feature found in Apple's Messages app in iOS 10. Here's how to use it.
Previously, images could only be sent in their original size and resolution in the Messages app. To send lower quality or smaller photos, users had to hop over to the Mail app where you had Low, Middle, Full and Original downscaling options.
For those relying on cellular data to send original-sized photos, the data use can add up, at a rate of three to five megabytes per photo — Â and even more for a Live Photo.
But with iOS 10, a new Low Quality Mode in Messages cuts images roughly to around 100 kilobytes each. The actual size and compression of the low quality image depends on the quality and size of the original photo.
To turn on low quality image, go to Settings, then Messages then scroll down to the very bottom where there is a new option for Low Quality Image Mode.
To disable it and return to full-quality images in Messages, just follow the above directions and switch back to sending photos full size.
For more iOS 10 tips and tricks, see AppleInsider's full coverage.
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6 Comments
Thanks for posting.
I've always found it counter-intuitive that iMessage includes only high-res pictures, whereas email allows low-res pictures. I normally think of SMS for short (i.e., low bandwidth) content. In any case, I like that you can now control the size. Maybe in the future they'll provide a way to control this separately for each message (vs. Settings, which controls the whole app).
Thanks...I appreciate this. I had done it on my iPhone/iPad, but forgot to do it on my GF's iPhone/iPad. I'll do it, tonight. :)
With the demise of the print version of MacWorld, Ai is becoming my "one-stop" source for Apple relate info/stuff. News, opinions, Podcast, deals and now Tips.Good show! :)Now if we could just get rid of the "snark" from a few posters. :)
Why bury this option and make it a toggled “mode”? Simply ask what quality I want to send an image at the time of attachment. Some images work well at low resolution, and others require detail to be maintained. Eventually Apple will come around, I’m convinced — they got it right in Mail.app, after all — but this little stopgap seems like bad UI design.
The workaround I have been using for years has been to take a screenshot of the photo and then send that instead of the full resolution photo.
Thanks! This is a very useful setting I didn't know about. I have an unlimited data plan, but I always feel guilty when I text a high-res photo to friends on limited data plans. For me, the vast majority of the time a low-res photo is all that is necessary. In my opinion, the way it should work is that the default should always be to text a low-res image, but if you force touch on it before you send, a option will pop up that allows you to select the high-res photo instead.