Catalina: can't import iPhone photos

I can confirm the problems stems from Photos having trouble importing photos/videos directly from the iPhone. I found a workaround:

1. use Image Capture to grab all the photos you need from the iPhone and import them to a local folder on your mac
2. drag all photos from the local folder back into Photos library
3. the photos will be added to your library as usual

Before I found this workaround, I used Image Capture to preview all the photos from my iPhone and when I tried to drag these iPhone photos to Photos, guess what, Photos crashes. I can recreate this crash again and again.

This bug is ridiculous given importing photos is such a fundamental function of Photos. So the team at Apple, please look into this without further delay. BTW my iPhone X and 2013 MacBook Air are all on the latest OS and my Photos library is stored on an external HDD.

The Photos Library can be on an external volume, but it must not be accessed over the network. You can neither keep it on a network shore nor on a NAS. Move it to a locally mounted volume.

As stated here by Apple: Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support

To prevent data loss, Apple doesn't recommend storing photo libraries on external storage devices like SD cards and USB flash drives, or drives that are shared on a network.

Even if it seemed to work on earlier system versions, it has never been recommended by Apple. And Catalina has additional security features.

Hello inAjet,

Thanks for asking the Apple Support Communities for help with importing photos on your Mac using macOS Catalina.

1. First before any troubleshooting, I recommend backing up your Photos library. This article will help: Back up the library in Photos on Mac - Apple Support

2. Next, you can try importing one photo. If that works, import 5 or 10. Then 20 more. Continue importing in batches to see if it's one specific photo or video that has some problem causing the entire import to fail.

3. You can also try using Image Capture to import files into your computer. This article will help: Transfer images in Image Capture on Mac - Apple Support

4. Last but not least, issues with the Photos library may benefit from running the library repair tool. How to use the Photos library repair tool - Apple Support

Thanks and have a wonderful day.

I'm having the same issue, except it doesn't work when the photos library file is located on an external drive. Before "upgrading" to Catalina, I was able to import into Photos with no problem. My photos library is located on an external drive through a MacMini server. Now in Catalina, none of the external photo devices (cameras, iPhone) will import into Photos. I experimented with moving my photos library file from the external server drive into my iMac internal drive (where Photos is running), and sure enough, it imports fine. Anyone who can help would be greatly appreciated.

I think I found a partial solution. There is another problem where photos says its curating your photos but its clear that it isn't, its just stuck. This would seem to be due to not having a default "System Photo Library".

If you're like me you may have your photos on a networked drive. In this case you may not have a "System Photo Library" defined. Start Photos with the Option key and you will get the Library selector dialog. Create a new library on your local HD - or open one already created there. Then open preferences and click "Use as System Photo Library". Now that you have a system library, close it and Option-click to open Photos again and find or select to open your networked library. This has cleared up the stuck progress on photos background tasks. (Now I can see its scanning my photos for face recognition.)

I hope that after scanning my library, maybe other features will start working better too

I overcame this problem by importing all the photos (.jpg) and then all the videos (.mp4), rather than all at once, which did not work. You can sort your folder based on 'kind' to do this easily. Not sure if this solves the problem for others but worked for me.

another day, another Catalina update and still nothing...

Thanks guys for workaround with Image Capture - works for me

Anyone @ Apple can please answer this? No. It's not us. We've done nothing other than upgrade to Catalina. No, it's not the NAS (irrespective of manufacturer). Permissions are intact. Libraries work perfectly for read only. Symlinking does not work. Unless the entire library is not on a remote volume, importing from devices (cameras, phones, etc.) does not work.

PS: I also found a suggestion to disable autoplay for videos. This may have cleared up problems too.

Actually all import attempts fail. Even from an SD drive.

Repair fails with the message "Library repair failed".

Also, tried editing an existing photo that was imported under Mojave and got this error message: "Error Downloading Photo - An error occurred while downloading a larger version of this photo for editing. Please try again later"

I'm using a MacBook Air (13" early 2015) running Catalina 10.15.2 and the photos library is on a Mac G5 running OSX 10.5.8. Of course this setup has been working just fine up until installing Catalina.

Also, Image Capture cannot read the SD card while the finder can read it just fine. Nor can it read another camera (Lumix LX-100 in PTP or PC direct modes).

However, Image Capture was able to read and copy iPhone photos to my Pictures folder

How can Apple release such broken software like this?! It's quite appalling.

Hello inAjet,

Thanks for trying our troubleshooting steps, and using Image Capture. Since you still have an issue, please contact AppleCare for more help.

Use this link to contact AppleCare: Contact - Official Apple Support

Thanks and have a wonderful day.

This is really silly. I can crash Photos on purpose just by dragging photos from iPhone to Photos’ library (using Image Capture).

Photos is not accepting photos that are imported from iPhone.

New iPhone pro Max, Updated iMac to catalina, now I cannot import my photos to the new photo app. this is a major bug that needs to be fixed ASAP. All the work arounds are marginal. Photos import is meant to seamlessly update your photo library with knowing what's already imported and only importing the new pics. Apple fix it.

This is a huge right-in-your-face bug. Can’t understand why Apple hasn’t addressed it yet with the small updates since Catalina’s release. Also why wasn’t this noticed during beta unless no one cared about importing their photos.