Apple Intelligence is now available on iPhone, iPad, and Mac!

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Level 1

0 points

iPhoto will not import from iPhone4 or Camera

I have been unable to import from my camera into iPhoto for almost 2 years now... I always thought it was my camera so I just ignored the issue. But now, my Iphone 4 wont import either. I guess the problem was not my camera. I get 2 errors, one says "iPhoto cannot import your photos because there was a problem downloading an image." and the other tells me that .JPG is not an authorized file format. I am able to import to other computers, so I know the files are fine...Stay tuned for the end of the post and I will give another reason that I am sure the files are fine!

I have tried many things to fix this, but I will break it out into pre iPhone4 and post iPhone4. Also, all software is up to date... I have the latest versions of all programs and OS.

Post iPhone4: I have created a new user account incase I had corrupt user preferences, I have run Repair Disk Permissions, and I even purchased Aperture which gives me the same errors... I was sure mad to spend all that money and have it not work either!

Pre iPhone4, I have reinstalled iPhoto, reinstalled the OS, and then later upgraded to snow leopard. None of this fixes the problem.

The strangest thing of all is that sometimes... After a reboot for example, I can get ONE video or picture to import. but then, the gates close and it is broken again. The file that imported is the same one that earlier said that it was not supported.

I have exhausted the software fixes that I am aware of... Could this be a hardware issue?

MacBookPro, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Aug 9, 2010 6:55 PM

31 replies

Aug 28, 2010 10:12 AM in response to brandall484

I also am now having issues importing photos from my iphone 4. The last import I was able to do was from 8/3/10. I am not sure when the last software update to iphoto occurred, but I do have the most updated version of both the iphone software and the iphoto software.
iphoto is now telling me that .jpg files are not recognized. I just bought my first personal mac and I was hoping that the programs would be very intuitive. I am disappointed in the fact that the standard photo software is not working with Apple's own devices. I am an Apple disciple, but the fact that I and other users are having issues importing photos from Apple hardware is frustrating.
Any advice/help/guidance on how to transfer these photos would be greatly appreciated.

Aug 28, 2010 11:46 AM in response to brandall484

The Image Capture application was able to take 98 of the 201 photos on my Kodak Easy Share V550. Then it could not see the camera. I put the camera in it's base, and Image Capture could see all the photos. I Imported the photos from Image Capture to Pictures. Then they imported to i photo.

BB-2010

Level 1

0 points

Sep 1, 2010 8:50 AM in response to brandall484

I have same issue with my iphone 4. Pictures do not want to load. But I can email them ONE AT A TIME!!! to get them off the phone.

Bill

BB-2010

Level 1

0 points

Sep 1, 2010 9:11 AM in response to brandall484

I just tried a full phone reset and found that it is now talking again.

to reset hold the top button and the round button. When the slider appears, do not touch it, just keep holding until the screen blacks. Wait some time, then turn it back on.

This iphone 4 seems to be a hunk of junk. It does a lot of stuff, but just does not work well all the time.

JMoose3

Level 1

0 points

Sep 1, 2010 10:06 AM in response to brandall484

I too am having issues with iPhoto. I tried importing a few photos I took over the weekend, but they would not import. Now when I try to Quit the iPhoto application I keep getting a message "Photos are being imported to the library. Please wait for import to complete." Nothing is connected to my iMac. I've checked that all my software is up-to-date (iPhone, iTunes, iMac).

I've tried going into the Applications and using Image Capture to import the new photos but get the same message to wait until the import is complete.

Does anyone know what else I can try?

Sep 1, 2010 7:51 PM in response to BB-2010

I had the same problem and a full reset fixed it for me as well.

-Jeff

DohNutz

Level 1

4 points

Sep 6, 2010 10:10 AM in response to jeff.ricks

I was experiencing a similar problem. After importing some older pictures on my phone, I started to get "Unrecognized file format" even though the pics were JPEGs. The reset worked but I still got these 'black' frames in iPhoto. What was happening is that the 'black' frames in iPhoto were referencing pics taken with Pano (a panoramic picture stitching app on iPhone) and then saved in the Photo Library on my iPhone.

What I did was, in iPhoto, I would select all the pics up until a 'black' frame, then do an 'Import Selected'. Then I would delete the pics from my phone. I would then just select the 'black' frame in iPhoto and Import Selected. Once that was done, I would just repeat the process. I had over 600 pics to import from my Italy trip so it took a bit. Once I was all done, I just went into Events and organized things as desired.

I hope this helps.

Sep 7, 2010 5:27 PM in response to jeff.ricks

I thought it was my iMac, but after reading this thread, a hard reset fixed it for me too.

Sep 7, 2010 10:32 PM in response to brandall484

I've just solved the vary same problem with a hard reset of my iPhone 4 with iOS 4.0.1

kmike65

Level 1

10 points

Sep 11, 2010 3:44 PM in response to ABRAND

I started having the same problem with my EasyShare when we upgraded to Snow Leopard. I'm finding in forums that if you have a video file on your memory card, that may be causing the problem. I just deleted the video file on my card and then had no problems importing, where as one minute before I couldn't import anything because the movie file was still on there.

I can usually get my memory card to work if I don't want to delete the video files, but what a pain to add a second step when I didn't have to before the "upgrade" to Snow Leopard. Hope the Powers That Be see these posts and fix the bug!

morazl

Level 1

0 points

Sep 21, 2010 11:49 AM in response to kmike65

Same problem trying to drag/drop photos from iPhone 4 to desktop using image capture, 3 different computers, 2 different USB cables, and 2 different iPhone 4's

Hard reset fixed it.
Lame.

Hatsumi

Level 1

0 points

Nov 11, 2010 8:19 PM in response to MDoorkeeper

I also have the Samsung Reclaim and i'm getting the exact problem! Have you been able to figure out how to solve the problem?

JingBing

Level 1

2 points

Dec 13, 2010 7:57 PM in response to brandall484

I have had the problem since getting my first iPhone in June when the iPhone4 came out. Sad! (So I have 1,000 photos on my iPhone). But, I just went into iPhoto, selected "import to library" from the file menu. Then, I typed in "iPhone" in the search box that came up. I selected all of those photos, and there they are now, in iPhoto. It's some kind of Mac miracle (though from years of Macs I do expect better miracles than this).

Aug 22, 2011 3:28 PM in response to SanBiagio

Hard Rset was the answer for me 🙂 Spent an entire afternoon reading several different forums and this was the ONLY solution that worked for me.

yang1018

Level 1

0 points

Sep 14, 2011 12:51 PM in response to brandall484

Hi Everyone,

I was having similar issues as described below. I just downloaded an update to import RAW images here: http://support.apple.com/downloads/. It seems like it is working so far.

yang1018

iPhoto will not import from iPhone4 or Camera