I have a new iPhone SE. Pictures I take with it appear in the Photos app on my iMac just as they did with my old iPhone 6s. But when I double click a picture made with the SE to see it in detail, I get a triangle image with an exclamation point in it. Why?
iMac 21.5″, OS X 10.11
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207022
"If you're using iCloud Photos with iOS 10 or macOS Sierra, you might see a warning icon in the upper-right corner of the photo or video, or you might see an alert message. To fully view, edit, or duplicate HEIF and HEVC media on your device, upgrade to iOS 11 or later or macOS High Sierra or later."
Recent iOS releases on recent Apple iDevices default to "High Efficiency" image storage formats, HEIC for photos and HEVC for videos on newer versions of iOS. macOS High Sierra 10.12.x and newer are equipped to handle the newer file types.
If you're still on OS X 10.11 El Capitan, as your profile indicates, the included Photos version is too old to handle the newer format.
So if your Mac is too old to update, or you have other reasons for not updating it to a newer release of OS X/macOS, you can override the iPhone iOS defaults to save images and videos to the more compatible .jpg and .mov formats on your iOS device.
In iOS 13.6, the change is located in Settings, Camera, Formats, Most Compatible (changed from High Efficiency)
That change will not convert any images and videos already captured and saved on your iPhone, but once you make the change, all new images and videos will be saved in the Most Compatible formats.
There are iOS and macOS (and Windows) paid apps that will allegedly convert high efficiency images and videos to compatible formats. I have not tried any of them on any platform, so I won't suggest any.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207022
"If you're using iCloud Photos with iOS 10 or macOS Sierra, you might see a warning icon in the upper-right corner of the photo or video, or you might see an alert message. To fully view, edit, or duplicate HEIF and HEVC media on your device, upgrade to iOS 11 or later or macOS High Sierra or later."
Recent iOS releases on recent Apple iDevices default to "High Efficiency" image storage formats, HEIC for photos and HEVC for videos on newer versions of iOS. macOS High Sierra 10.12.x and newer are equipped to handle the newer file types.
If you're still on OS X 10.11 El Capitan, as your profile indicates, the included Photos version is too old to handle the newer format.
So if your Mac is too old to update, or you have other reasons for not updating it to a newer release of OS X/macOS, you can override the iPhone iOS defaults to save images and videos to the more compatible .jpg and .mov formats on your iOS device.
In iOS 13.6, the change is located in Settings, Camera, Formats, Most Compatible (changed from High Efficiency)
That change will not convert any images and videos already captured and saved on your iPhone, but once you make the change, all new images and videos will be saved in the Most Compatible formats.
There are iOS and macOS (and Windows) paid apps that will allegedly convert high efficiency images and videos to compatible formats. I have not tried any of them on any platform, so I won't suggest any.
Perfect! This is exactly what I needed to know. For the time being, at least, I have overridden the high efficiency format in my phone settings. That fixed the problem. Maybe one day I’ll upgrade the OS in my Mac!
Thank you so much!
Using iMac Photos with iPhoneSE
