I pay for iCloud. But Mac can't import photos from iphone Message: "Optimised Storage is Turned On"

Hi Leonie

Thank you for your time.

I took the photos with my iPhone camera so the pictures are on my phone. I've paid for iCloud storage for almost a year now and I have been importing photos from my phone to my Mac regularly. But now this is the second time this "Optimise iPhone Storage" message has come up and stopped the photos from going from my phone to Apple Photos on my Mac (MacBook Pro).

I think from what you're saying is that I need to turn OFF iCloud storage for my phone AND Mac? So then the photos would load directly into Apple Photos from my phone without interference from iCloud?

I'll look for those settings on my phone and Mac now and see if that helps.

Thank you!

Hi Leonie

Thank you for your time.

"At least disable "Optimize iPhone Storage" on your iPhone" <-- I went in to my phone settings and I cannot find "optimise iPhone Storage" in the settings (so I cannot disable that) . It's an iPhone 8. Fully updated software, but maybe too old for that.

Tried to import photos tonight and again I got the same message about optimised storage not allowing me to import my photos.

I'm just spinning my wheels here.

I just got the 2 hour-long iPhone update installed, and now Apple Photos does not even recognise my iPhone. (And I rebooted everything a few times.)

This is going from bad, to worse.