7 Messages
iMessage Videos Compressed
My wife and I switched to AT&T from Verizon last month, we have the unlimited premium family plan and both have iPhone 14 pros.
She sent me a 1 minute video via iMessage while I was off of wifi and the video was pixelated/compressed. She re-sent the video while I was on wifi and it came through normally. We both tried restarting our phones.
I replicated the problem on her phone, switching her wifi off and sending her the video. It also came through pixelated/compressed on her phone.
I’ve scoured the internet and made sure all of our settings are correct: Settings-Messages-Low Quality Image Mode is off.
I called AT&T who told me that they “refreshed my network” and I should try again in a few hours (still having the issue).
Any ideas? I never had this issue with Verizon; is AT&T throttling data/video fidelity in iMessage?
Gary L
ACE - Expert
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16.5K Messages
9 months ago
You're getting blue or green bubbles when you send texts to each other that way?
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Maverick3938
7 Messages
9 months ago
Blue bubbles both ways
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IhateATNTstopcompressingmyvideosto240p
1 Message
9 months ago
I have the same problem brother seems my videos only send as iMessages when I am home, have cellular off, and wifi on. Otherwise the quality of my videos are an absolute joke can’t even tell what’s happening like 240p resolution
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ATTHelp
Community Support
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232.9K Messages
9 months ago
Hey @ IhateATNTstopcompressingmyvideosto240p! Let’s point you to the right direction to get the video quality on your iMessages!
Please try the below steps:
Settings > photos > uncheck optimize iPhone storage - choose the download and keep original instead.
It could be because it's syncing with iCloud due to which it's sending the compressed version while sending via cellular data.
Try this and let us know if the above steps.
Thank you for visiting AT&T Community Forums!
Antony, AT&T Community Specialist.
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floatc
1 Message
4 months ago
The videos sent to me in iMessage are tiny and practically useless. I am also unable to uncheck the "Optimize iPhone Storage" under settings/Photos. It simply does not respond if I try to click on it. I am using only 64 GB out of 256 GB!
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ukm
8 Messages
7 days ago
iPhone 12 mini running latest iOS 17.5.1 on AT&T unlimited plan. Video management (stream saver) is off, cellular options are "5G Auto" and "Allow More Data on 5G" (these are default AT&T settings). Camera "Formats" set to "Most Compatible". iMessages "Low Quality Image Mode" off and "Send as SMS" off.
What I found is that AT&T compresses video files (sent as iMessage) with *.mov extension. This is a bug in their system. They so far refuse to acknowledge this as their problem and are not fixing it. When I just change the extension to *.mp4 and send it (iPhone/Mac knows what the file really is) it goes through without compression. I'm sure most of you have verified if the recipient is on a WiFi network, the video file is received without compression. Only when received in AT&T network the compression problem happens.
Changing *.mov to *.mp4 on a Mac is straightforward. If you want to do this on your iPhone, you can first save the video to Files. From Files (after enabling viewing extensions in the options) change the extension from *.mov to *.mp4 and copy that video, then paste in iMessage to send.
This is still ugly (AT&T needs to fix this problem!) but it's a workaround (if you want to go through the trouble). Best wishes to everyone. I've never posted in AT&T Community Forums before. This has annoyed me so much and so much time invested that I'm going around many different/old posts I could find and putting this out there.
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kevink
ACE - Scholar
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1K Messages
7 days ago
If going by iMessage, and not MMS, that is an Apple controlled environment. Encrypted end to end. ATT is just a data pipe, and doesn't modify the data.
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ukm
8 Messages
7 days ago
I am a professor in electrical engineering. I initially thought the same but came to a different conclusion - backed by my experiment. Note that this problem only happens when the recipient is on AT&T network. Does not happen for T-Mobile, Verizon, etc.
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OttoPylot
ACE - Expert
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24.9K Messages
7 days ago
Never seen that problem with iMessage on any of our iPhones (7 to XR), and all of us are on AT&T.
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ukm
8 Messages
7 days ago
Good for you! That is the mystery, I agree. Not everyone seems to have this problem. Aligning my settings to those who do not have the problem doesn't solve it either. Oh well.
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