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iPhoto won't import photos or videos from iPhone 4

Although iPhoto worked fine with my iPhone 3G, it won't import any photos or videos from my iPhone 4. There are many problems including:
1. Never gets past "Loading photos..."
2. Attempts the import but fails due to "Unreadable files"
3. CPU loop. iPhoto is stuck "Not Responding" for hours.

I have tried using iPhoto '08 (7.1.5) on a Mac Pro and iPhoto '09 (8.1.2) on a Unibody MacBook Pro.

OK, to be complete, the first import of about 10 files to my Mac Pro worked. But the subsequent import attempts of 72 files have given me all of the problems. After countless attempts I was able to import the photos a few at a time but just one of the videos. But I don't consider this to be a "success".

Mac Pro 2.8GHz quad 6GB, Mac OS X (10.6.4), iPhone 4

Posted on Jun 25, 2010 8:42 AM

52 replies

Jul 2, 2010 9:21 PM in response to ClassicalDave

Having same problem...trashed cache, rebooted the phone, iphoto imported photos and videos. Thanks for the suggestion

Jul 3, 2010 4:09 AM in response to ClassicalDave

OK folks, I restored my iPhone last night and I woke up to it this morning (restored from a backup I made just before hitting the restore button) and that seemed to fix my problem. iPhoto pops right up and importing has zero issues.

You might want to give that a shot, as well...

Jul 3, 2010 6:51 AM in response to ClassicalDave

Ive tried deleting the caches and rebooting the phone(from backup). Still getting the same error message.

iPhoto cannot import your photos because there was a problem downloading an image.

Im at a lost

Jul 3, 2010 8:55 AM in response to ClassicalDave

Ok so I've restored the iphone to factory settings..(restore as new iphone) And shot a video.
Deleted the caches and restarted the computer.
Connect iphone.

iPhoto cannot import your photos because there was a problem downloading an image.

error again..

abz2000

Level 1

0 points

Jul 3, 2010 1:25 PM in response to ClassicalDave

mine worked with xp, but showed a totally empty folder when i tried to acess them in windows 7, i rebooted the iphone and all was well,
peace,
abz

Jul 3, 2010 2:00 PM in response to jacob santiago

Is everyone having this issue with strictly photos or with videos?

I can import pictures fine, but videos won't import. Strangely, a few days ago I was able to import videos but today I cannot. Also tried Image Capture, as well as attaching my phone to a Windows machine to just copy the files outright -- that fails as well.

It's seems the video files are corrupted beyond retrieval -- yet they still play on my phone.

Jul 3, 2010 3:00 PM in response to ClassicalDave

Its seems to me its more of a iPhoto trouble then the iPhone.. I have 2 iphone 4's and they are both giving me the error message when trying to import video. Photos import fine.

Going to try it out on another Mac and see if i get the same error..

Will update what happens

Jul 3, 2010 8:57 PM in response to jacob santiago

I am having the same problem with a new iPhone 4 and a new MacBook Pro. At first iPhoto could see the images but wouldn't import them. I disconnected and reconnected, and now they show up as grey squares in iPhoto.

Bothus

Level 1

18 points

Jul 4, 2010 12:25 PM in response to RalphieRulz

I had the same problems mentioned above. Could not load photos or videos from my iPhone 4 to my Mac Mini even though I could before with my 3GS.

After reading all the posts I first tried rebooting my iPhone. That solved the problem for me.

Jul 6, 2010 11:04 AM in response to ClassicalDave

Since I created this topic, I have succesfully performed about a dozen imports using both of computers, but each import has included a much smaller number (1-30) of photos and only a few (0-2) videos. Perhaps the problem has something to do with the number of files to be imported.

One odd thing I should have mentioned at the beginning is that when I had the import problems, if I looked at the thumbnails in the Photos app, there would be overlapping black rectangles over much of the screen, overlapping some of the thumbnails and the white space between them. It might be interesting to find out if others have experienced this.

Jul 7, 2010 4:26 PM in response to ClassicalDave

I am having the same problem as everyone else (iPhone 4 / MacBook Pro). Wouldn't it be easier if Apple would monitor these forums and then fix the problem. I guess it is off to the Genius Bar on Saturday!

Jul 7, 2010 4:37 PM in response to Mark Gregor-Pearse

I seem to have solved it by restarting (powering off) the iPhone and restarting the computer. All is working now.

Jul 7, 2010 5:39 PM in response to ClassicalDave

It's happening to me, too. I had only one short video and 5 photos. At first nothing would import. Then I deleted the cache as suggested above. After that, the 5 photos imported, but I got the "unreadable file" error message and the video did not import.

Mikey G.

Level 1

8 points

Jul 9, 2010 5:32 PM in response to marweiss

I restarted my iPhone4, and that solved my problem, I was able to import my pictures and video.

iBrox

Level 1

0 points

Jul 10, 2010 11:34 AM in response to Mikey G.

Had this problem and I'm not sure if this is the root cause or not, but I think the problem is stemming from the photo/video file names. They are resetting on the iphone and when an attempt is made to transfer new photo/videos, it causes the problem because the file names already exist. I changed file names of videos on my Mac and was able to import new videos from iPhone 4. What a pain! Is there a setting that can prevent iphone from resetting file naming of videos/photos?

iPhoto won't import photos or videos from iPhone 4