Photos app on MacBook isn't showing all iPhone photos to import??

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Level 1

13 points

Photos app on MacBook isn't showing all iPhone photos to import??

I have an iPhone 7 (12.1.3) and MacBook Pro (Mojave version 10.14.2). I connected the phone via USB to my MacBook, and opened the Photos app to import pictures (I try to do this intermittently) and tonight I noticed that there's hundreds of pictures that are on my iPhone but for some reason are NOT in my Photos library on my laptop, and those pictures do not show up on the Import page when my phone is connected. How do I get these photos from my phone onto my laptop, which is my primary "backup" for my pictures?

I've read a lot about iCloud photo storage, which I find frankly very confusing. Right now, the photos in question appear in my iCloud account (looking at them in my web browser logged into iCloud.com), but I cannot find a way in iCloud online to select all the pictures and download them to my MacBook - I'd have to manually select each picture, which will take a long time. Is there another solution that I'm missing?

iPhone 7, 12

Posted on Feb 8, 2019 6:37 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

léonie

Level 10

200,729 points

Feb 11, 2019 5:13 AM in response to goldie099

Until two years ago we could simply select all photo at www.icloud.com and then download them. But the "Select" button has been removed during an update and now we have to hold down the ⌘ key while clicking each photo to download. This will not work for hundreds of photos.

If you do not want to sign up for more cloud storage, I would download the photos from your iPhone to a new, empty Photos Library.This way you can just download photos and not upload your existing Photos Library to iCloud before you even can start to download then photos from the iPhone.

Try the following:

Quit Photos on your Mac, if it is running.
Hold down the Options key ⌥ while launching Photos. Keep holding down ⌥ until you are seeing the Library Chooser dialog. Select to create a new library.
Open "Photos > Preferences > General" and enable "Use as System Photo Library".
Open "Photos > Preferences > iCloud" and enable the library as your iCloud Photos Library. Do not use "Optimize Storage", so all photos will download from iCloud.

Once all photos are in your new Photos Library, you can export them to folders on your Mac with "File >< Export > Export unmodified Original". You can then import the exported photos to your main Photos Library, or just keep the second library for syncing with your iPhone.

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Answer 2

Feb 10, 2019 8:48 AM in response to goldie099

Hello goldie099,

Thank you for using the Apple Support Communities. I see you have a question about using iCloud Photos, and I'm happy to help out.

Checking the iCloud website was a great idea, and that tells you that all of your content is synced there. It sounds like the best solution would be to enable iCloud Photos on your Mac. This would sync all of your current photos, and any photos going forward as well. Check out the steps below to get set up, found in the article titled Set up and use iCloud Photos:

On your Mac with OS X 10.10.3 or later, go to System Preferences > iCloud. Click Options next to Photos, then select iCloud Photos.

I hope this helps get you started!

Take care.

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Answer 3

goldie099 Author

Level 1

13 points

Feb 10, 2019 6:44 PM in response to CarlosP1228

So you're telling me I need to pay money to upgrade to more iCloud storage in order for my pictures to be saved on my computer? That's ridiculous. All I want to be able to do is get my pictures off my iPhone onto my computer. Look, I could just go through and email them to myself and save them that way, there's ways to do it. I'm trying to figure out why some of them are able to transfer via USB and others (seemingly random) aren't.

If I turn off iCloud photos on my phone (presumably then I could transfer everything via USB), it gives me the following message: "This iPhone was not able to download 981 full-resolution photos and videos. If you continue, the low-resolution versions of these photos and videos will be removed" with the option to either remove from iPhone or cancel. If I remove them from my iPhone, will there be any photos permanently deleted that I will never get back? This is very confusing.

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Photos app on MacBook isn't showing all iPhone photos to import??

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