If you are facing the same problem, this article is for you! I have shown 13 ways to fix the ‘unable to load video or photo’ error on iPhone.
1. Check your iPhone storage
If your iPhone denies access to your photos or gallery, the first thing you might want to check is if you’ve used up your iPhone storage. This is often the case if you’re not on iCloud+. So even if you’ve been syncing your pictures to iCloud, you might’ve exhausted the 5GB free storage already. To check your iPhone storage: open Settings → General → iPhone Storage. At the top, you’ll see the storage you’ve left. You might also want to see these iCloud tips and tricks to see how to manage your iCloud account or upgrade to iCloud+ for more storage. If you find that iPhone’s local storage is full, freeing up storage often removes the photo error.
2. Force quit and open Photos
As with any smartphone, apps sometimes crash on the iPhone, too. And the gallery app on the iPhone isn’t an exception. Of course, there’s no way to tell if your gallery app has failed or not. But if you can’t load your photos, it’s probably a temporary gallery issue. Force-quitting and reopening your gallery app might remove the error.
3. Turn off data saver
Turning on the data saver limits general data usage on your iPhone. So this might affect picture download and file syncing to and from iCloud Photos. Besides, turning this feature on also affects your internet experience. So it’s always best to toggle this off so you can be sure it’s not the cause for the image loading error message. To deactivate the mobile data saver on your iPhone, go to Settings → Mobile Data → Mobile Data Options → toggle off Low Data Mode. And if you’re on a Wi-Fi network, open Settings → Wi-Fi. Next, select your router and toggle off Low Power Mode.
4. Enable cellular data
If you received an iCloud link to a photo on your iPhone, you need internet access to download it to your local storage. But if you’ve capped your iPhone to download on Wi-Fi only, getting your photos to your local storage might fail if Wi-Fi is unavailable or out of range. Hence, allowing the Photos app to download or sync files using cellular data helps. To do this, open iPhone Settings → Photos → Mobile Data → toggle on Mobile Data.
5. Allow unlimited data for syncing
Besides allowing Photos to use cellular data, a limit on the data it can use to sync pictures or videos might make pictures fail to load sometimes. Although this is rarely the cause, it may be the culprit if your mobile network is poor. Hence, removing the data limit on iCloud Photos allows you to unleash all available mobile network signals on downloading and uploading iCloud Photos. Note: Allowing unlimited data usage for iCloud Photos might drain your mobile data. The steps to allow unlimited data for iCloud Photos are pretty much the same as allowing mobile data. To do so, go to Settings on your iPhone. Tap Photos → Mobile Data → toggle on Unlimited updates. Once done, you can try to open your pictures again.
6. Restart your device
Sometimes, the error might be due to a temporary system failure. Your Photos app might’ve even failed for some reason. Restarting your iPhone, in that case, might fix the issue. Besides, this gives your iPhone a fresh start and reset its random access memory (RAM).
7. Turn off power saver
You might’ve turned on the low power mode on your iPhone while trying to reduce battery drain. But Apple itself says turning on low power mode on iPhone may affect some functionalities on your iPhone and slow it down. This includes the temporary pausing of iCloud Photos. So turning off low power mode might help remove the unable to load photo error after all. To deactivate low power mode, open Settings → Battery → toggle off Low Power Mode.
8. Delete and recover the photo
If a specific picture triggers the unable to load photo error message on iPhone, it’s either the result of a broken or incomplete download. In that case, you might want to delete the picture and try to recover from iCloud. To delete the said picture, long-press it and tap Delete from Library → Delete Photo. To recover a deleted picture: You may also look how to delete photo albums on iPhone 👍
9. Log out and back into Apple ID
So this isn’t often the case. But it fixes the issue sometimes. Moreover, your iCloud account might be unable to access your iCloud Photos for some reason. Simply logging out and back into your Apple ID might fix the issue. Here’s how to do it: Next, log back in by tapping the Apple ID banner again. Next, follow the prompts to log in. Now try to load the said picture again to see if the error message persists.
10. Deactivate storage optimization for photos
Activating storage optimization means your iPhone will push high-resolution photos and videos only to iCloud and keep the low ones on your local storage. Hence, downloading a high-resolution image from iCloud might fail due to this limit. This is also unusual, though. But of course, turning this off might help fix the problem. To remove image storage optimization, open iPhone Settings → Photos. Tap Optimize iPhone Storage if there’s a checkmark on it.
11. Update your iOS version
If you still get the “Unable to Load Photo” error message on your iPhone, your iOS version might be obsolete and unable to sync iCloud Photos successfully. Updating your iOS version to the latest one usually fix this issue.
12. Still facing issues? Use iCloud.com
Although this is a temporary fix, if all else fails, and you desperately need to access your Photos, you might want to log on to the iCloud website on your PC or Mac and log in with your Apple ID. Once logged in, click Photos to load all your pictures from iCloud.
13. Use Apple Support
If the unable to load photo error message still appears after trying all recommended fixes, it’s time to contact Apple Support. The “Unable to Load Photo” error message on your iPhone can appear for any reason. Whatever the reason is, the above solutions should help solve the problem. And hopefully, you don’t have to contact Apple Support. Let me know if you have any questions in the comment section below. Read more:
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