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What did I do wrong to end up with thousands of photos on my 'Photos for Mac' program that have been duplicated from my iPhone plus from other folders on my 'Photos for Mac' on my iMac, when all I wanted to do was import new photos from my iPhone? I only have 260 photos on my iPhone and yet now have 24,344 photos on my iMac.......and it looks like many are in duplicate or even sometimes triplicate!
iMac 21.5", macOS 10.13
Good afternoon jecaseka,
Welcome to the Apple Support Communities!
I understand you are seeing 24,344 photos on your iMac, possibly with duplications, when you only meant to sync the 260 photos on your iPhone with your computer.
Did you recently enable iCloud Photos on your iMac? If so, all of the photos on your computer were uploaded to iCloud as well as the photos on your iPhone.
Do you have a Time Machine backup of your Mac? If so, you might be able to restore your computer back to the time before you made this change, if it was recent.
Restore items backed up with Time Machine on Mac
If that is not possible, we may need to export the photos that you don't want to be shared from iCloud and create a new System Library for just the iPhone photos.
Designate a System Photo Library in Photos
Whatever is in iCloud will be downloaded to your new System Library. So, if you want to move some of those 24,344 images out of iCloud and to a folder on your computer, you can export them. I usually do this one album at a time, and rename the files using the "Sequential" option. Since you already have possible duplicates on your computer, I would export these photos to an external drive. For more details, review the article below:
Export photos, videos, and slideshows from Photos on Mac - Photos User Guide
Please review the following resource carefully, and reply back to this thread if you need some additional help with iCloud Photos:
Take care.
Good afternoon jecaseka,
Welcome to the Apple Support Communities!
I understand you are seeing 24,344 photos on your iMac, possibly with duplications, when you only meant to sync the 260 photos on your iPhone with your computer.
Did you recently enable iCloud Photos on your iMac? If so, all of the photos on your computer were uploaded to iCloud as well as the photos on your iPhone.
Do you have a Time Machine backup of your Mac? If so, you might be able to restore your computer back to the time before you made this change, if it was recent.
Restore items backed up with Time Machine on Mac
If that is not possible, we may need to export the photos that you don't want to be shared from iCloud and create a new System Library for just the iPhone photos.
Designate a System Photo Library in Photos
Whatever is in iCloud will be downloaded to your new System Library. So, if you want to move some of those 24,344 images out of iCloud and to a folder on your computer, you can export them. I usually do this one album at a time, and rename the files using the "Sequential" option. Since you already have possible duplicates on your computer, I would export these photos to an external drive. For more details, review the article below:
Export photos, videos, and slideshows from Photos on Mac - Photos User Guide
Please review the following resource carefully, and reply back to this thread if you need some additional help with iCloud Photos:
Take care.
Hi jecaseka,
In addition to the resources above, the Photos User Guide will help you learn how to use the Photos app on your Mac. Click on the Table of Contents link to begin. I would suggest working your way through the guide with the topics in the order presented.
Photos User Guide - macOS Catalina
I hope this helps ...
Have a great day!
Very grateful - thanks so much :)
Problems importing Photos from iPhone to iMac
