Coachie Coach

Q: Photo backup from iPhone help???

Recently updated to El Capitan.  The new photos app will only recognize about one months worth of photos I would like to backup from my iPhone, how do I get it to search further back (it won't come up during an import).

MacBook Air, iOS 9.1, Connecting to an iPhone 5s

Posted on Jan 2, 2016 7:29 PM

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Q: Photo backup from iPhone help???

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  • by sterling r,

    sterling r sterling r Jan 4, 2016 7:27 AM in response to Coachie Coach
    Community Specialists
    Jan 4, 2016 7:27 AM in response to Coachie Coach

    Howdy Coachie Coach,

     

    It sounds like your computer is only seeing about the last month or so of photos that you have on your phone and won't import any past that. Normally photos that don't show up in the list to be imported are already in your library either because you have enabled iCloud Photo library:

     

    If you can‘t import photos from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to your computer

    If you enabled iCloud Photo Library on your Mac and iOS device, your photos might already be on your computer. Use these steps to check for your photos in Photos for OS X. You can also go to iCloud.com and open the Photos app to see your entire photo library and choose which photos to import

     

    You could enable My Photo Stream and add them to a shared album that you can access from your computer to download them that way:

    You can also use My Photo Stream to access your photos on your computer.

     

    You could have already imported them to your computer and synced them back over from iTunes on the computer to the iPhone since that would also prevent them from showing as being importable again according to this article:

     

    Sync photos from your computer to your iOS device using iTunes

    • You can't reimport pictures synced from your computer to your device back to your computer. You can only import pictures taken by your device, or saved to it, from your device to your computer. If you need to retrieve synced photos from your device, email the photos from the device to yourself. Then download the photos from the emails to your computer.

     

    Thank you for using Apple Support Communities, take care!