Google Messages missing contact photos? You’re not alone

  • The latest Google Messages update introduced a new bug that’s making contact photos disappear.
  • The issue appears to only affect some beta users and is not widespread.
  • Affected users are still seeing contact photos in the Contacts app, and it briefly shows when tapping a conversation, but then defaults back to the monogram.

If you’re running the beta version of Google Messages, you might have observed something strange. Don’t worry — you’re not going crazy. There appears to be a bug in the latest update that is causing contact photos to not show up in chat threads.

The issue was brought up by Reddit user Typicalg123 in r/GoogleMessages. Though users can still view their contact photos in the Contacts app, it looks like the images only briefly show when you tap a conversation before defaulting back to the original monogram. From the Reddit discussion, another user, u/Jmerse, states that the bug only seems to affect contacts who use an iPhone.

LATEST ARTICLE

See Our Latest

Blog Posts

admin February 18th, 2026

We are thrilled to announce the availability of Claude Sonnet 4.6, Anthropic’s latest model, on Snowflake Cortex AI. As a […]

admin February 18th, 2026

In mid-2025, we launched the Snowflake GTM AI Assistant to roughly 6,000 users across our sales and marketing organization — […]

admin February 18th, 2026

The Impact of AI-Enabled Commerce on Consumer Goods Companies and the Foundational Steps Industry Leaders Are Taking Now to Gain […]