Good afternoon malachite,
Welcome to the Apple Support Communities!
I understand you would like to have the 500 vacation photos you took on your iPhone to appear on your MacBook Pro. If your goal is to keep the metadata intact, you want to work directly with a Photos application. There are three primary ways to do this:
- Use My Photo Stream
- Use iCloud Photos
- Import directly to Photos library on Mac using a USB cable (the same one you use to charge your iPhone).
AirDrop is meant to share a few files at a time, and treats photos like any other "file" on your computer.
If you have not already done so, please be sure to back up your iPhone after a special event like this:
How to back up your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch
What operating system do you have on your MacBook Pro? (Click the Apple Menu > About This Mac).
If you have iCloud enabled on your Mac, then you can enable My Photo Stream and see the most recent 1000 photos or 30 days and import them to your Mac.
If you enable iCloud Photos, then all of the photos on your iPhone will be synced to your MacBook Pro automatically.
If you don't wish to use iCloud, then you can import the photos directly.
Take a look at the resources below for more information:
My Photo Stream
Mac
Go to Photos > Albums > My Photo Stream.
Set up and use iCloud Photos - If you set up iCloud Photos, you won't see a My Photo Stream album. Instead, you can see your photos in the All Photos album (or the Recents album if you have macOS Catalina), with the most recent photos appearing at the bottom of the album.
About iCloud Photos and My Photo Stream
Transfer photos and videos from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch
Once you have the photos in your Photos library on your Mac, you can delete the photos you transferred via AirDrop.
Please reply to this thread and let us which method you chose to sync or transfer your photos and if you need any additional help organizing your vacation memories.
Enjoy your day!
