How to send images from the Messages app on the iPhone in iOS 12

One of the more controversial changes in iOS 12 has to do with the way images from your photo library are shared in the Messages app. AppleInsider walks you through the easy, though perhaps a bit more convoluted than it has to be, method of sharing your images.

To start, we are going to hop into the Message of our iOS 12 equipped iPhone, though of course the same methodology applies to the iPad as well.

The biggest change is that sharing photos is no longer done by tapping the camera icon. Photos is instead, its own full-blown iMessage app.

If you want to take and share a photo, it is roughly the same as it always has been. Tap the camera icon, shoot, and hit the blue arrow to send.

Sending one from your library however, uses the new Photos iMessage app.

In Messages, jump into a message thread.
Tap the App Store icon and tap on the Photos app icon.
Now tap the photos you'd like to send.
When finished, tap the send icon.

This new method isn't exactly intuitive, and we'll be the first to admit we still haven't gotten used to it after a month on iOS 12. It doesn't Apple will be changing its course any time soon, so better to adjust sooner rather than later.

43 Comments

512ke 781 comments · 19 Years

About 6 years ago

I hope we all get used to it. Personally i don't like having to re learn basic functions or to discover that previous functionality has quietly disappeared. I guess it's the price of progress!

mike1 3432 comments · 10 Years

What is the supposed benefit of this change? If there will be more functionality because of this change, fine. But, I hope it's not just change for change's sake.

Is it possibly an attempt to get people into that App bar more often so they see other stuff???

macseeker 541 comments · 8 Years

I have friends who hate to learn new ways. It took them a little over a month to learn the changes between iOS 10 and 11.

arthurba 146 comments · 16 Years

mike1 said:

Is it possibly an attempt to get people into that App bar more often so they see other stuff???

Yes I think that’s exactly it. But in this case there should be a way to preference what the ‘other’ icon is - ie: Instead of the camera and ‘app’ button, a ‘favourite’ Messages app and the ‘app’ button. Then your favourite can by default be the camera, but you could change it to be the photos app, or a 3rd party app that perhaps still combines the camera and photos.

command_f 426 comments · 14 Years

Sorry to disagree but that looks like an improvement to me. The camera icon normally means "use the camera": that is, take a picture. Using the photos icon to mean "use one of my photos" seems more intuitive to me. I suspect that the previous operation was due to someone taking a shortcut in the design and bundling photos in with the camera. If the iOS change was in the opposite direction, I would anticipate accusations of obscurity 🤓.