Image Capture not "seeing" photos on iPhone hence I am unable to download them.

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Level 1

4 points

Image Capture not "seeing" photos on iPhone hence I am unable to download them.

I'm running OS Sierra 10.12.6 on a MacBook Pro 2016 and an iPhone 7 running 12.3.1

I used to regularly (weekly) and easily use Image Capture to download photos and videos from my iPhone to an external hard drive connected to my MacBook Pro.

If I saved the files to the same folder each time it would show which photos/videos videos had already been downloaded by showing a green check mark next to each previously downloaded item. It no longer does that, so it is hard to tell which files have been downloaded and which not.
Image Capture also now only shows some photos/videos in the Image Capture window, even though all photos are on the iPhone. I did not originally have "Optimize iPhone Storage" selected on my iPhone. At some point that got changed to it being selected, but I do not recall doing it. I did do an update and am wondering if some how it got changed during that update.
I have since changed the selection back to "Download and Keep Originals" from "Optimize iPhone Storage". The other options selected are "iCloud Photos" and "Upload to My Photo Stream".

I can no longer see most of the photos that are on my iPhone in Image Capture, so I cannot download them to my external drive.

Of the images I do see in Image Capture it now only shows the files with a generic icon and not a thumbnail of the actual photo/video so you can not even tell which file (image/video) it is.

Any suggestions?

I have read/tried several solutions in offered various forums including here and none have worked. I am so annoyed!!! It has completely disrupted my workflow.

Thanks,

Terri

iPhone 7, iOS 12

Posted on Jun 3, 2019 11:50 PM

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Answer 1

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Eric Root

Level 10

684,057 points

Jun 4, 2019 1:14 PM in response to siskisyoudog

Try setting up another admin user account to see if the same problem continues. Please post back on whether or not this worked. Also try the Safe Mode. Please post back on whether or not this worked.

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Answer 2

HWTech

Level 9

55,952 points

Jun 5, 2019 9:52 PM in response to siskisyoudog

Apple changed the picture format to HEIC. Perhaps Sierra does not recognize this new file format.

You can change the picture format back to JPEG on the iPhone, but I think it will only take affect on new pictures. IIRC there may be two different settings in two different locations on iOS. I find it really confusing. Last year I found several articles online detailing how to have iOS default to JPEG pictures. I think Apple reverts these iOS settings after an iOS upgrade though, since I found iOS was saving the pictures in HEIC format again (without my permission).

iOS also has a setting to convert the pictures from HEIC to JPEG when transferring them to a computer with a supported OS. I don't recall if there is anyway to use Finder to navigate to the pictures on the iPhone to pull them off or if a third party "file explorer" app is needed.

Maybe you can use Air Drop to transfer the pictures to your computer.

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Image Capture not "seeing" photos on iPhone hence I am unable to download them.

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