[Fixed] Google Voice bug prevents large photos from sending

Abner Li | Sep 5 2023 - 7:20 am PT

Google Voice is seeing a peculiar issue today where “high-resolution” photos and “other large media” cannot be uploaded or sent via SMS/MMS.

Update: As of 4:24 PM UTC, Google says this problem has been fixed.

Specifically, images and files over 2MB will attempt to upload before failing, showing an exclamation mark over the photo and a “Not sent. Tap to retry” warning in red below. We’re encountering this issue on Google Voice for Android this morning.

The Google Workspace Status Dashboard explains the issue as such: “Google Voice users might encounter error messages when trying to upload large media across all platforms (Web, Android, IOS). Some files between 1mb and 2mb will fail to upload.”

Google’s recommendation is to “reduce the file size of attachments to 1mb or below which will enable image/file upload,” which is much more easily done on desktop than mobile. Images like screenshots do indeed send.

This issue started in the past hour and Google is actively working on a fix.

Google Voice rarely gets updates to its SMS/MMS side and is primarily a calling service catered towards enterprise customers at this point.

Updating…