Blurry photos from iPhone to Android
When an iPhone texts a photo to an Android phone without iMessage, the picture travels over the carrier’s messaging system, which shrinks it to a small file. Send it another way to keep the quality; photos already received can be upscaled.
Where the quality goes
Between two iPhones, Messages uses iMessage and sends photos over the internet at high quality. To an Android phone it falls back to the carrier: MMS on older setups, or RCS where both phones and the carrier support it, which iPhones gained in iOS 18. MMS was designed for picture messages two decades ago, and carriers cap attachments at around 1 MB or less, so a 12-megapixel photo is squeezed to a fraction of its size. RCS sends far better quality, which is why the problem varies by carrier and phone.
What to run, and in what order
For photos already received, the detail was discarded in compression, so upscaling is the right tool rather than deblurring: it generates detail at the resolution the photo should have had. Group shots benefit from a Restore Faces pass afterwards.
The tool for this is Unpixelate an image.
What to expect
Partly fixable. Snapshots and group photos become sharp enough to keep and share. Fine text and small background faces were thrown away by the compression and come back as plausible reconstruction.
Practical notes
- On iOS 18 and later, check Settings, Apps, Messages, RCS Messaging is on; RCS sends photos at much higher quality than MMS
- Share a link instead: an iCloud, Google Photos or shared-album link delivers the original file
- For a handful of photos, email them as attachments at Actual Size
- Ask the sender for the original rather than forwarding the copy you received, which compresses it again
Questions
Why are pictures from my iPhone blurry on Android?
They were sent as MMS, which compresses photos to a small file size set by the carrier. The original on the iPhone is still sharp; only the copy that travelled by text lost quality.
Does RCS fix blurry photos between iPhone and Android?
Mostly. With RCS on at both ends and supported by the carrier, photos arrive at much higher quality than MMS. If either side falls back to MMS, they are compressed again.
Going deeper
How to unpixelate an image explains the method behind this, including what it cannot fix.