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TurksCap Author

Level 1

9 points

Photos Mac won't "Import All New Photos" problems with iPhone connected by USB and Flash Cards

My iCloud storage filled up again a few weeks ago, so I need to delete about 500 videos and photos off of my iPhone, but want to be sure they are first backed up first to Photos Mac. Because Photos Mac rarely offers to "Delete photos after importing", I need to manually free up space.

When I plug my iPhone 13 into my iMac, Photos launches automatically (unlike my camera's SD cards), but when I select "Import All New Photos", it refuses to import most, esp. videos and screenshots. I can try redoing import by selecting one at a time, but very tedious — before deleting pics off my phone, I have to open up each and every photo in Photos Mac to compare creation date and time — plus some pics never, ever import. I see lots of videos from 6 months ago that never imported. Photos also never offers to import images off of my camera's SD card, so I've been forced to drag and drop them onto desktop or "Air Drop" them instead.

Apple Support said that Air Dropping might mess up Photos' importing memory, esp. with SD cards and sometimes with iPhone 13. Maybe because it saw pics imported another method? They also said "iCloud storage Full" could confuse Photos, but I freed up ~10 GB last night and am still having issues with importing today.

Air dropping the biggest videos would be easiest, but if that is the cause of my problems, then I don't want to make bad situation worse. And I can't download directly from iCloud to my iMac, because that messes up my pics' creation dates and times. Anyone else had problems with Photos refusing to "Import All New Photos?" and solved it?

TIA!

iMac 27" Late 2014

Mac OS Big Sur 11.7.1 running Photos app

iPhone 13 iOS 16.

iPhone syncs photos to iCloud account, but iMac does not because Photos Mac library is too big.

iPhone 13, iOS 16

Posted on Apr 30, 2023 10:29 AM

Best reply

léonie

Level 10

195,113 points

Posted on May 1, 2023 1:55 AM

Your problem seems to be that you are using iCloud Photos Ion your iPhone, but want to import manually from the iPhone.

If you want to use iCloud Photos on the iPhone, you should really use iCloud Photos to sync the photos to your Mac, even if the file creation date changes. If your photos are already in iCloud and have been removed from the iPhone, the file creation date may already have been changed anyway.
Or, if you want to download files manually from the iPhone, do not use iCloud Photos on your iPhone, at least, do not use iCloud Photos to save storage on the iPhone. Disable "Optimize iPhone Storage" for Photos, so the original image files will always remain on your iPhone.

But do not mix the two methods of importing. Stick either with iCloud Photos or selective manual importing.

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Photos Mac won't "Import All New Photos" problems with iPhone connected by USB and Flash Cards

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