Very slow first iPhone and iPad photo sync over usb-a with Catalina

Have used the same Workaroud as you. With 10.15.4 the sync works partially. However, photos are not synchronized until they are started repeatedly. Also, many more photos are transferred than have been added. In some cases, the sync cancels with the error message "Folder not found".

For me, every sync is an adventure. Sometimes it takes 10 minutes and everything just works the way it is supposed to work, sometimes it rakes 10 minutes but no new folders are added, sometimes it takes a little bit longer, and it adds duplicate pictures, sometimes it removes the duplicates, and sometimes (already happened twice) it takes 3 hours and retags every picture, creating (or not) duplicates along the way. This has become a very unreliable process

I just started clean again: removed pictures from phone, unchecked photos sync option, deleted ipod photo cache, emptied trash, and restarted both iPhone and Mac. Then I synced pictures again, this time with the option to sync all folders. It took less than 3 hours for about 40,000 pictures, which is not that bad, however, several folders were not synced!!! Furthermore, pictures are out of chronological order on all folders!!! I just give up. Apple is a complete disappointment. They just became Microsoft. In fact, my experience with Windows 10 is pretty good. Please take into account I also went through Apple Care, and engineers collected data from my phone/mac three times and did not fix a thing!!! Every time I spent time with them for more than an hour... Shame on them. I should have just stayed with my pc and itunes, where things worked. From now on I’ll just remove all my pictures and use Amazon Photo, which has unlimited photos on the cloud if you are a Prime member. It us unbelievable I need to go through a third party when both phone and computer are both Apple. Anyway, I am so disappointed....

I had a somewhat similar experience getting started again. However, I just synced over and over again. It seemed like it was sort of getting used to working again after so long not having to do anything. I think it is all working now (knock on wood). I did not find starting over from scratch each time to be helpful (experience), but did start from scratch and then synced and synced and synced. Good luck, but I am not optimistic about Apple as I don't even keep track of the bugginess anymore but just try to live with it. Sort of like the old days with Microsoft when you had to reboot a lot. The difference is that when you rebooted windows it worked for awhile. Can't say the same for Apple.

Steve

So, I actually did a serious check on my theory of different devices. When I synced my iPad it diddled with the 10K photos like the iPhone did. Then I synced again and no problem. Then I synced with the iPhone and no problem. That theory shot. Don't know why it felt it had to do something with those 10K photos. Maybe I looked at my computer cross-eyed one day and it was getting even. Can't just do a book sync. If you turn off the photo sync, it takes all your photos off. Steve

Good point. I guess I'm so used to taking everything off to try to get things to work from scratch that I didn't remember that. If you go back to syncing photos does it have to spend hours with them (like the last year) or will it go fast with nothing to do? Steve

Hi Squiddz,

I have now tested the synchronization via the internal SSD of my MacBook. Unfortunately without success. Photos that have already been synchronized are still being synchronized again for no apparent reason. This happens both when adding and deleting folders.

We now use the Music app to sync music and photos to an iPhone or iPad: