“Why can’t I see images and GIFs in my Teams chats anymore? My colleagues are sharing screenshots and reactions, but all I see are blank spaces or endless loading messages. Is there a setting I’m missing, or is something broken in my Teams installation?”
Understanding why Teams fails to display images and GIFs
Microsoft Teams relies on multiple components to render visual content properly, including network connectivity, cache storage, application permissions, and organizational policies. When images won’t display in Teams or GIFs are not available in Teams, the root cause typically involves corrupted cache files, restrictive firewall settings, outdated application versions, or disabled content policies at the tenant level. This tutorial addresses the most common scenarios where Teams is unable to view images or display GIFs, providing systematic solutions for Windows 10 users and other platforms experiencing these visualization problems.
Resolving image display issues in Microsoft Teams
The following steps will help you systematically troubleshoot and resolve situations where Microsoft Teams is not showing images, screenshots fail to appear, or you encounter the persistent “images are being loaded please wait” message that never completes.
Clear the Microsoft Teams cache to restore image visibility
- Close Microsoft Teams completely by right-clicking the Teams icon in your system tray and selecting Quit, ensuring no background processes remain active that could interfere with cache clearing operations.
- Press Windows Key + R to open the Run dialog, then type %appdata%\Microsoft\Teams and press Enter to navigate directly to the Teams application data folder where cache files are stored.
- Delete the following folders completely: Cache, blob_storage, databases, GPUcache, IndexedDB, Local Storage, and tmp, as these contain potentially corrupted data preventing proper image rendering in your Teams client.
- Restart Microsoft Teams and sign in again, allowing the application to rebuild its cache structure with fresh data that should restore normal image and screenshot display functionality.
Verify network and firewall configurations for Teams content delivery
- Confirm that your organization’s firewall allows connections to *.teams.microsoft.com and *.skype.com domains, as Teams uses these endpoints to retrieve and display images, GIFs, and other media content shared in conversations.
- Check your antivirus or security software settings to ensure they are not blocking Teams from downloading external content, as overly aggressive security policies can prevent image files from being retrieved and displayed properly.
- Test your network connection by opening a web browser and navigating to https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-teams to verify general internet connectivity and access to Microsoft services required for Teams functionality.
- If using a VPN, temporarily disconnect to determine whether VPN routing or security policies are interfering with Teams’ ability to load images and GIFs from Microsoft’s content delivery network.
Expert Tip: Corporate proxy servers often cache outdated content or block specific file types. Contact your IT department if clearing cache doesn’t resolve the issue, as they may need to whitelist additional Teams endpoints.
Update Microsoft Teams to the latest version for improved media handling
- Click your profile picture in the top-right corner of Microsoft Teams, select Settings, then navigate to the About Teams section to check your current version number and compare it against the latest available release.
- If an update is available, Teams will typically download it automatically, but you can force an update check by clicking Check for updates in the About section or by downloading the latest installer from the official Microsoft Teams website.
- Uninstall and reinstall Microsoft Teams if you continue experiencing image display problems after updating, as a clean installation often resolves persistent issues related to corrupted program files or incomplete update installations.
- After reinstalling, sign in and verify that images and screenshots now display correctly in your chat history and channels, testing with both recently shared content and older messages to confirm complete functionality restoration.
Enable GIF functionality and verify content policies
- Navigate to Settings by clicking your profile picture, then select Messaging to access communication preferences where GIF and emoji options are controlled within the Microsoft Teams client application.
- Ensure that the “Show animated images and emoji” option is enabled, as disabling this setting will prevent GIFs from displaying in your conversations even when other users can see them without any problems.
- Contact your Microsoft 365 administrator if the GIF option is missing from Teams or appears grayed out, as organizational policies configured in the Teams admin center can disable GIF functionality for specific users or entire departments.
- Ask your administrator to verify messaging policies in the Microsoft Teams admin center by navigating to Messaging policies and confirming that “Use Giphys in conversations” is set to On for your assigned policy group.
Addressing common image and GIF display problems
When standard troubleshooting steps don’t resolve your Teams image visibility issues, these targeted solutions address specific error conditions and configuration challenges that prevent proper media rendering in the application.
- Images display as broken links or show perpetual loading indicators: This typically indicates DNS resolution problems or content delivery network access issues that prevent Teams from retrieving image files from Microsoft’s servers. Flush your DNS cache by opening Command Prompt as administrator and running the commands ipconfig /flushdns followed by ipconfig /registerdns, then restart Teams to establish fresh connections to content servers. If the problem persists on Windows 10, check Windows Defender Firewall settings to ensure Teams has permission to access network resources for both private and public network profiles.
- GIFs are not working in Teams despite enabled settings: Organizational administrators may have implemented content filtering policies that block animated content for compliance or bandwidth management reasons, even when client-side settings appear correctly configured. Request that your IT department review the messaging policy assigned to your account in the Teams admin center under Messaging policies, specifically verifying that Giphy content rating is not set to Strict and that the Use Giphys in conversations toggle is enabled. Additionally, some third-party security solutions categorize GIF repositories as potential security risks and block access at the network level, requiring whitelist exceptions for domains like giphy.com and tenor.com.
- Screenshots and pasted images fail to send or appear blank to recipients: This issue often stems from clipboard integration problems or insufficient application permissions on your local system that prevent Teams from accessing image data copied to your clipboard. Grant Microsoft Teams full permissions by navigating to Windows Settings, selecting Privacy, then Camera and Microphone, ensuring Teams is listed and enabled in both sections even though these permissions primarily affect video calls. For clipboard-related issues, try saving your screenshot as a file first using the Snipping Tool or Snip & Sketch application, then manually attach it to your Teams message using the attachment button rather than relying on direct paste functionality.
- Images display correctly in desktop app but not in web browser version: Browser-based Teams relies on different rendering engines and security contexts than the desktop application, making it susceptible to browser extension interference and strict content security policies. Disable browser extensions temporarily, as these frequently block content delivery network requests that Teams uses to load images. Clear your browser cache and cookies specifically for teams.microsoft.com, then test image display again in an incognito or private browsing window to isolate whether browser-specific settings or stored data are causing the visualization problems.
- For persistent issues, consider that Teams file access problems can also affect image sharing capabilities, requiring additional troubleshooting of file permissions and storage access rights.
Remember: If images suddenly stop displaying across your entire organization, check the Microsoft 365 Service Health Dashboard in the admin center for reported outages affecting Teams media services before investing time in individual troubleshooting steps.