iOS 14: Facebook Messenger: An "albums" link has disappeared with iOS 14

 iOS 14 with an iPhone 8

Facebook Messenger for iOS (version 282.0)

Date: 09/20/20

Description:

Here's a minor complaint about the Facebook Messenger app (version 282.0) and iOS 14. I immediately noticed this after updated to iOS 14 from 13.7.

The problem: You can no longer access the other albums from the camera roll. I can only seem to scroll through the "recent" album.

This is a bit perplexing, because for the last year, while using the Facebook Messenger app for iOS, I would scroll down from the recent photos until an "albums" option appeared in the upper right. 

How am I supposed to access this option now? Am I supposed to download photos from shared albums onto my phone so that they show up in "recents" album list?

This is very perplexing, and not a great user experience for me. Hopefully this can be fixed.

This is much easier to to show than to describe, so please take a look at the attached screenshots.

I've given the Facebook Messenger iOS app full access...

Where in the world did the "albums" link go to? How am I suppose to access other photos from different albums? Is that now prohibited?

As a point of comparison, here's Facebook Messenger running on an iPad Mini that's running 12.3.1. This is exactly what I was used to seeing until it disappeared with iOS 14:

I scroll down through the photo rolls and an "albums" link appears! This is what I expect to see!

Steps to Reproduce:

1. On an iPhone 8 running iOS 14, open the Messenger app

2. Select any friend 

3. Click on the gallery option to open photos 

4. Continually scroll down - note the lack of an "albums" link to access other photo albums

Result: An albums link has suddenly disappeared from the Facebook Messenger app for iOS with the latest iOS 14 update. There does not appear to be a way to access other albums to select a photo 

Expected: The "Albums" link should return! I used this link EVERY time I sent a photo using the Facebook Messenger app 

In addition - it looks as if I am not the only user who has encountered this problem with iOS 14 and the Facebook Messenger app. Here are some reviews from the App Store...