Uploading photos from your iPhone to Facebook
Here’s another user question I received from iBAM reader, Khara. Seeing that I don’t have my iPhone yet, I thought I’d throw it out to you guys to chew on. Any help for Khara?
I have an iphone and facebook question. How do I send mobile uploads to facebook from my iphone? Sure, sounds like it would be easy, just e-mail to photos@facebook.com or notes@facebook.com. However, when I send a photo to photos@facebook.com, it sends through my e-mail on my phone, so a message from facebook gets sent to me that reads:
“Sorry, we cannot support uploads sent via email. You sent from Yahoo. If you are sending from a phone, it must be configured to send directly.”
I googled my little heart out but couldn’t get the answer. Surely someone else has this problem.
Thanks for your time,
Khara
I don’t use Facebook so I can’t say much about the iPhone and Facebook directly. From what I do understand about the transferring of pictures from the iPhone, they are only done via email. So unless Facebook has email updates, I’m not sure it can be done. Someone could prove me wrong, but I’m fairly sure that’s an accurate statement.
FWIW, it sounds like you need MMS to perform those actions. MMS could come in a iPhone software update at some point but right now it doesn’t support MMS.
I have an iPhone and facebook profile and I have never had a problem with it. My phone sends the pictures through my email to photos@facebook.com just fine. Is there anyway we could get some more information like maybe some pictures of the iphone as she is setting it up? I can help further through email chris [at] c2labs [dot] com.
Thanks to Brent for the posting this and for the replies! I haven’t been able to check my blog feeds the last week, so I just now got to read them.
Kevin - you hit the nail on the head, that is exactly the problem.
I found a site that acts as a middleman between iphone and facebook, called pxpipe.com. You register for the service, then login to your facebook account for it to have access to upload photos. pxpipe then gives you an e-mail to send to that then sends it to facebook through some voodoo so it doesn’t think it was received through e-mail. However, I could not get the service to work. It is a beta service and makes no reliability promises. There was also no help/contact e-mail.
Chris - Why couldn’t that have happened for me? LOL I have yahoo! and gmail accounts set up in my iphone. Yahoo is the default. I have facebook as a contact, with photos@facebook.com as it’s e-mail. I pick a photo, select e-mail, send it, and I get the error that is in the message I send to Brent. I would be happy to send you any more info you may need.
Thanks!
My iPhone worked perfectly with Facebook until recently. I’m getting the same error message. So I think it might be caused by 1.1.1 update? That’s the only thing changed.
Hi Gang,
Yes, I had the same problem recently and only on this site, finally found others having the same problem.
Here’s what I’ve learned:
- Facebook officially only supports mobile uploads via MMS. however, iPhone has been successfully able to do this via the email application until the recent 1.1.1. update. No idea on what changed internally - but something did.
- Inquiries to Facebook just get the same response of “only supporting MMS” - which iPhone supposedly does not support …. yet
- There also seems to be something that Facebook recently changed - in the way they tie the mobile phone to the account. If you look in your mobile settings you might see your phone number and service provider listed. You also might see a validated email address. I removed all and then tried to re-add, but was only able to re-add the phone number, not the validated email
- I’ve sent inquiries into friends in the iPhone division at Apple, but haven’t heard a peep yet (odd)
For now, I’m using the Flickr applcation in Facebook to upload pictures to Flickr and then display. Not as good or well integrated as mobile photos that you can tag later - but it’s something.
I’ll post more when I learn more.
Ok, got a response from Facebook finally - saying: “You may have been able to do this in the future (freudian slip - meant past) - but we are taking a strict policy now that we can only accept MMS posts). We may offer more uploading options in the future.
So, in my opinion here’s what may have happened:
- Facebook changed their technology to not allow the “iphone style” of MMS to work anymore
- ATT changed the way they were interpreting iPhone MMS transmissions (when you did send a photo, the email address sent from included the phone number in the past, but doesn’t any more)
So, something clearly changed - we’ll see how it gets fixed in the future.
Victor,
Thanks for all the recon info. I wonder what facebook’s reasoning is on cracking down and only accepting MMS. Surely they don’t want to alienate iphone users. I can’t believe we can’t use the most advanced cell phone on the market to send photos to facebook. LOL.
The service pxpipe that I mentioned that I could not get to work started working in a very unexpected way yesterday. I tried sending the same photo from my iphone to pxpipe 3 times and then about a week passed and nothing happened. Yesterday when I logged in facebook it said I had new pictures awaiting approval, which was a new thing for me. I clicked the link and pxpipe had sent the image 471 times! I don’t recommend trying pxpipe.
Yeah, I had the same problems with PxPipe. I don’t like the notion of having an approval step. Defeats the whole purpose of mobile uploads, I think. Certainly a Facebook requirement, I’m sure.
As for the reason for the crackdown - I think it has more to do with ATT - and perhaps the bandwidth being used to send the 2Megapixel photos across the MMP lines… something like that. Not really sure.
I’m sure it’s very controversial, though…. internally - otherwise more people would be talking about it.
Now, that all said - there are folks out there that are still posting photos on facebook, through Mobile… and ones that I KNOW are doing it through iPhone - I’m trying to track that down last.
Here’s the trick to upload photos to facebook from your iphone.
From your iphone, when you email the photo, you have send the email using the same account as your contact email in facebook. If you send from another email account, facebook doesn’t know what to do with it.
I had 3 email accounts on my iphone, and the default one is not the one i have for facebook, after about 10 emails, i switched the default email and picture is on my profile page.
Try it out, let me know if it’s not a fluke.
Hien
Doesn’t work for me.
I changed my email contact on Facebook to my Yahoomail address that matches the iPhone and tried to upload an image. Same response as before:
Can’t support uploads sent via email….
When did you try this last? What version of the firmware are you running?
Just tried it on a friends iPhone (we are both on 1.02) and it works for her as well.
Tested it with my gmail, my .mac, her gmail.
You’ve enabled mobile uploads? And did the confirmation code bit.
What email address are you sending to? I sent my emails to mobile@facebook.com
Ok, well, then that probably confirms that it’s an effect that was introduced by the update to 1.1.1.
Drat.
Hmm, i dont’ think it’s a firmware issue, IHMO.
Both of us just tried photos@facebook.com and it doesn’t work, so that email address doesn’t work for emails. It does say in the facebook help, MMS -> photos@facebook.com
Try mobile@facebook.com
wait - your previous email said that it DID work for you????
…oh you’re saying send to “mobile@facebook.com?”
Yes, photos from my iPhone only worked when sending to mobile@facebook.com
Let me know if that works for ya.
odd. Tried it - and just got nothing. No error message, but no post, either.
No it is a firmware issue.. it worked before fine with 1.02 for me but now it doesn’t with 1.1.1 and I tried mobile@facebook.com same error
Well, I can’t get photos@facebook.com to work anymore on my 1.1.1, however, mobile@facebook.com is working perfectly at the moment. Maybe this is a patch race between Apple and Facebook to see who can screw you fastest? ha
I have tried mobile@facebook.com - and havne’t been able to get it to work. Just tried again, but no luck.
make sure your iPhone default email is the same as your Facebook default. I had an issue first because I was using a forwarding email address on Facebook. Even though the went to the same account, the email address need to be identical.
yes, that’s been mentioned…
IT WORKS AGAIN!
I had the same problem as everyone. Facebook was initially allowing me to email from my iphone (gmail acct) and it would show up almost instantly in my profile.
Then I updated to 1.1.1, and I got that “…only MMS…” stuff. So I gave up on it for a bit… then I read this post.
I went to their mobile page, and activated my mobile phone. Facebook SMS’s you a little code that you need to input back on the site. Activated.
Then I just tried it again about 30seconds ago and it worked again! So Facebook must have lifted the Ban on non-MMS messages.
I just tried and no luck.
What type of email account are you using? Maybe that may make a difference.
.Mac, yahoo, AOL, or pop?
may have to deactivate and deactivate phone - but would like to know what type of mail account.
Thanks
Mine works. I have a 1.1.1 unhacked using gMail via the. Nothing custom in the setup. Hope that helps.
To everyone with 1.1.1 that says it works fine:
1. Is the default e-mail on your Iphone the same as the one you have set up on facebook?
The facebook address that I have all of my alerts from facebook sent to is my yahoo account, and my yahoo account is also my default iphone e-mail. I still get the error message from facebook when e-mailing photos to photos@facebook.com and mobile@facebook.com.
As for my facebook login e-mail, that is my college e-mail address account, as it was college only when I joined. I can’t figure out how to change a login-e-mail if I need to changes that to match. I graduated college two years ago, and don’t even have access to the account, so it would be handy to be able to change it.
2. Both people that have said it works fine use gmail. Anyone out there using Yahoo or another provider and having it work?
3. On facebook did you have to deactivated and reactivate your mobile set up to get things working again?
1. No, my emails didn’t match - but it still worked with Gmail as my pop email.
2. Tried Yahoomail, but that definitely does NOT work. Haven’t tried .Mac
3. Did not have to deactivate and reactivate the phone.
Here’s what I have learned, I hope this helps someone out. Here is the back story:
I activated my facebook account several weeks ago. My default facebook e-mail is my yahoo account. My default iphone e-mail was my yahoo address as well. I was getting an error message when ever I tried to send from my iphone (yahoo) to photos@facebook.com and mobile@facebook.com.
Today mobile uploads are finally working from my iphone, here is how I accomplished it:
1. I set my default iphone e-mail to my gmail account.
2. I sent a picture from my iphone to photos@facebook.com
3. I received an e-mail at my gmail account saying “Your photo upload was successful! Use this code to confirm your phone on facebook.com: (the code was here)”
4. I went to facebook.com, and didn’t notice a new album or picture so I went to my mobile page and down at the bottom on the right there is an “enter a confirmation code” link, so I clicked it and entered the code I was given.
5. Nothing had happened yet at this point so I decided to send a picture to mobile@facebook.com
6. I went back and checked facebook and I had a new “mobile uploads” album with both pictures in it.
I guess it works with either photos@ or mobile@, I probably just didn’t give it enough time.
So pretty much yahoo doesn’t work, gmail does. I don’t have .mac or aol so I have not tried it from them. The only downside is that gmail now has to be the default on my iphone in order to send pictures.
Add me on facebook since we’ve been though so much together. LOL.
Oh no, it ate my post! I had a detailed explanation of how I just got it to work typed out. Pretty much I changed my default email on my iphone to gmail, sent a photo to photos@facebook.com, got a confirmation e-mail to my gmail, entered the code it gave me on my mobile page (even though I activated it weeks ago). I didn’t notice anything new, so I tried sending one to mobile@facebook.com. When I checked again I had a new “mobile uploads” album and both pics were in it.
It’s certainly clear that posting from the Gmail account (possibly all POP accounts) works again. Whew!
Works for me:
Set up mobile access for my FB account
Sent from my Gmail account
To photos@facebook.com
Firmware 1.1.2
UK phone on O2 (not that that should make any difference)
Hey, also works for me.
UK User on o2
Set up Mobile on FB with iPhone, send back confirmation text.
Made sure the email account [.mac] was the xxxx@mac.com for FB address
Sent it to photos@facebook.com
Latest firmware!
Awesome!
Wanted to confirm it working on firmware 1.1.2.
You need to make sure:
1) Go to the ‘Mobile’ facebook application and make sure your phone is enabled and active. You’ll do that confirmation code thing.
2) Use the email address that you use for your Facebook account. Not sure if this is necessary, but people seem to say it is, so I’m going to go with it.
I send to photos@facebook.com and it works.
Good luck!
Chet
so do I need a gmail account to get this to work
I just set this up. I have a Yahoo email account and that’s my email account on Facebook. I have tried uploading a photo to 3 different email addresses: mobile@facebook.com, photos@facebook.com, and ymbwy3nt@fbookpix.com, which is the one they suggest if you are having trouble with the confirmation code.
None of work. They all tell me “Sorry, we cannot support uploads sent via email. You sent from Yahoo. If you are sending from a phone, it must be configured to send directly.”
Cathy,
Not sure why it doesn’t work for you but it did for me just yesterday… have you enabled mobile access?
https://register.facebook.com/mobile/?account
I don’t know if that’s required (seeing as we’re just using plain old email) but it might be worth a try.
J.
I switched over from Sprintpcs to AT&T for my iphone three days ago. The odd thing was everything kept working for my new iphone as far as mobile updates. Its like the mobile facebook interface kept thinking I was on Sprint.
Then when I sent my first photo up to my facebook account using my gmail account, sure enough it came back with a text saying, “Your upload was successful please entire confirmation code xxxxx.”
So I logged into Facebook and went to the mobile section and noticed that the mobile section now had my cell phone number followed by AT&T - so facebook caught up with my service switch!
I entered in my new confirm number and BANG the picture was up and it all worked fine.
I will keep testing!
Ed
It finally worked for me. Had to set my iPhone default email to Gmail. The only change I made, and it worked.
Seems Facebook and Yahoo! Mail are not compatible.