Why your WhatsApp export is missing its photos
There are five separate causes and they have different fixes. In order of likelihood: you exported without media; the phone had already cleared the old files to save space; iCloud offloaded them; the chat was longer than the 10,000-message media cap; or the files were too big to include. Only the first and third are reliably fixable — and both take about two minutes.
First: which symptom do you have?
| What you see | What it means | Fixable? |
|---|---|---|
<Media omitted> | Android, exported without media | Yes — re-export |
image omitted | iPhone, exported without media | Yes — re-export |
| The line names a file that isn't in the zip | The file was no longer on the phone when you exported | Sometimes |
| The zip is far smaller than the chat feels | iCloud or Android storage management offloaded the originals | Usually yes |
| The export starts partway through your history | You hit the message cap, not a media problem | Partly |
The five causes
1. You exported without media
By far the most common, and the least painful. The option is easy to tap past. Export again choosing Attach Media on iPhone or Include media on Android. You will get a zip instead of a lone txt — that is how you know it worked.
2. The phone deleted them to save space
WhatsApp’s own storage management, and Android’s, clear old received media after a while. The message line stays forever; the JPEG does not. If a photo has been cleared from the device, an export cannot conjure it back — but it may still be in your WhatsApp cloud backup, and it is certainly still on the phone of whoever sent it.
3. iCloud offloaded them (iPhone)
iOS keeps a thumbnail and moves the original to iCloud. The thumbnail is not exportable. The fix that works: scroll back through the conversation to the oldest part you care about, let the images visibly load, wait on Wi-Fi for a few minutes, then export. You are forcing the originals back onto the device first.
4. You passed the 10,000-message media cap
Exports with media stop at 10,000 messages, counting backwards. Everything older is absent entirely — text as well as photos — so if your file begins somewhere odd, this is your cause, not a media fault. See the cap, and how to work round it.
5. The files were too large
Long videos are often dropped so the archive stays under the size the share sheet will accept. For a printed book this matters less than it sounds: a video can only ever become a single still frame on paper.
The two-minute fix, in order
- Get on Wi-Fi and plug the phone inRe-downloading a few hundred photos over mobile data is a bad afternoon.
- Scroll the chat back through the parts you care aboutSlowly enough that the images actually render rather than staying grey. This pulls offloaded originals back to the device. It is tedious and it is the step that works.
- Wait five minutesDownloads continue after you stop scrolling. Let them finish.
- Export again, with mediaCompare the new zip’s size against the old one. Bigger means it worked.
- Check before you print, not afterDrop it into the free studio and page through. Every missing attachment is visible as a gap on the page. This costs nothing and is the entire reason the preview exists.
One thing worth knowing before you go hunting: a missing photo does not ruin the book. Kept in Print typesets the line where it belongs and lays the page out around the gap, so the conversation still reads in order. What a page looks like with the photos present is a fair bit better, though, which is why this page exists.
Questions people actually ask
What does 'Media omitted' actually mean?
It is the placeholder WhatsApp writes when a message contained an attachment but the export did not include the file — either because you chose to export without media, or because the file was no longer on the phone.
Can I recover photos that were cleared from my phone?
Not through an export. They may still be in your WhatsApp cloud backup, and they are almost certainly still on the sender's device. Restoring a backup and re-exporting is the only route from your own phone.
Why is my zip only a few megabytes when the chat has hundreds of photos?
The originals have been offloaded — to iCloud on an iPhone, or cleared by storage management on Android — and only thumbnails remain locally. Scroll back through the conversation on Wi-Fi to pull them down, then export again.
Will missing photos ruin the printed book?
No. The message keeps its place in the conversation and the page is laid out around the gap, so nothing reads out of order. You can see exactly where the gaps are in the free preview before paying anything.
Do videos appear in a printed book?
As a single still frame, with the message in its place. Paper cannot do otherwise. Voice notes are different — those are printed as a waveform with their real duration.
Check your export before you print it.
Preview every page — freeThis is one of the guides — or see everything we’ve written.