MMS Marketing: Images Show on iPhone but Not Android? Check Your Image Format

We helped a client troubleshoot an SMS/MMS marketing campaign with a maddening symptom: the picture messages displayed perfectly on iPhones, but on Android phones the image simply didn't show. Same message, same send — different result depending on the phone. That split is a classic sign the problem is the image format, not the campaign.

The cause: TIFF images getting dropped on Android

They were sending their images as TIFF files. Here's the trap: even though their messaging provider (Twilio) technically accepts TIFF as a media type, that doesn't guarantee it survives the trip. Carriers and Android's MMS handling are stricter and less consistent with uncommon formats, and the TIFF was effectively getting dropped on the Android side — while Apple's side rendered it fine. So it looked like it "worked," because the tester happened to be on an iPhone.

The fix: stick to JPEG, PNG, or GIF

The reliable rule for MMS is to use only the broadly supported image formats: JPEG, PNG, or GIF. These render consistently across iPhone, Android, and the carrier gateways in between. Avoid TIFF, and be cautious with newer formats like HEIC or WebP for the same reason — "supported by the platform" isn't the same as "displays on every phone."

Keep the file size down — under about 600KB

Format isn't the only thing carriers are picky about — size matters too. MMS has tight size limits, and oversized images get compressed, degraded, or dropped. Keep each image under roughly 600KB to stay safely within what carriers will deliver intact. Resize and compress before sending rather than firing off a full-resolution photo.

And the lesson that ties it together: always test a campaign on both an iPhone and an Android phone before you send it to your whole list. A message that looks perfect on your iPhone can be silently broken for half your audience.

Need a hand with this?

We help small businesses set up and troubleshoot messaging and marketing tools, including MMS through providers like Twilio. If your picture messages aren't landing the way they should, we'll figure out exactly where they're breaking and get them displaying for everyone on your list.