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I can see most but not all using the “name photos “ workaround. I can see the top conversations in storage>messages and that shows the approx correct amount storage. I don’t think the photos are gone, gone but there is definitely an indexing bug in the iMessage photo gallery that isn’t allowing photos to populate in there. If I scroll back in a text thread the photos are there. I didn’t have this problem in iOS 18. It started iOS 26 at least for me.

Searching online, this seems to be a widespread issue so I’m surprised Apple hasn’t bothered to fix it yet. I use the photo tab/ gallery a lot so being without it is annoying
I’ve noticed Apple tends to ignore reports of widespread issues that don’t involve the devices crashing constantly until they have identified what the problem is and have a potential fix. Only then will they acknowledge it exists as a problem.
 
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