Photos won't import from iPhone to Mac after Sonoma update.

Yes, THIS!!!

I was so frustrated to see that imports are not working because of this. If you import all images not present in Photos, you should check the photos/videos which show up first on the iPhone side. Look for an exclamation point on the bottom right of the image and delete it (hopefully no important photos/videos). Then the import continues up to the next photo/video with issues. I had to import over 8000 files and was stopped during the import about 15 times to hunt for the corrupted photo/video... very annoying. Less annoying than not being able to import the files at all...

Richard.Taylor wrote:

Videos seem most often to be the culprit -- their codecs are just not as standardized as jpgs. Even videos that say ".mov" can have vastly different compatibilities. The Image Capture app certainly works better than Finder dealing with incompatible files. Probably the best plan would be to import pictures first, and then attempt the videos.

I think stuff downloaded from web sites would be the last to try...

Yes, this seems to be the case. I just cannot fathom why it would stop importing each time it comes across a corrupted file. Very annoying to troubleshoot for an average user. I consider myself the "support guy" of the family and I took almost a week to figure it out. Including investing in a 10Gbit/s USB-C 3.2 something cable because I figured with an iPhone 15 Pro it would need it...

I didn't see it mentioned, but I've found that even having a drive CONNECTED that is formatted in ExFAT will not allow you to import your photos from an iPhone. I was having the same issue and my external photos library was indeed formatted in ExFAT. However even trying to import into a photo library where it normally is on the internal drive (the system photo library) I could still not import when the drive was connected. Disconnected the drive and the photos imported without issue.

THIS IS IT!! As silly as it sounds, that's the issue, a "bad" video or photo. My iPhone would disconnect almost immediately after starting the import, so I went to my phone, I found the first video (that luckily I didn't care about) and deleted it, clicked "import all new" again and the process started. I couldn't import any picture or video for 6 months...such a silly thing.

i was having this issue because my photos library was on an SSD formatted exfat. Once I reformatted to mac os journaled then put the library back on the external ssd photo import function worked fine. It appears that whatever drive you have your library on, it must be formatted mac os journaled. good luck!

I started having this issue a while back, probably around the time of the Sonoma upgrade too, and the thing that finally worked for me was repairing the Photos library on my Mac. It sure seemed like a phone problem but this fixed it so what am I gonna do, deny it? Anyway:

• (Optional) Back up your whole mac or just the photos library just in case
• Close Photos on the Mac
• Hold Command and Option, launch Photos
• Photos will open and offer to repair the library, click "Repair Library"
• Wait a while for the process to complete
• Connect your phone
• Click "Import All New" in the phone import screen (important to get Photos to update its records of what has already been imported)
• Clean up all the imported duplicates / undesired items (hopefully not too many, I had about 600)

Anyway this fixed all my issues with flaky imports, imports not working, constant re-importing of already imported items, and so on. Hopefully it helps someone else out too.

After multiple failed attempts to transfer photos from iPhone to Mac using Photos, I successfully imported all but one file as follows:

a) Opened Image Capture,

b) Imported all photos to a new folder,

c) Drag/dropped folder into Photos,

d) successfully Individually dragged four photos noted in error message as "Failed to import", and

e) unsuccessfully dragged one large .mov file.

I used a similar method in the early days of iPhone because regularly some files failed to import to iPhotos. Eventually Apple seemingly solved the problem and I switched to direct to Photos import. Looks like the one needs be cautious again and use creative methods with the new Photos import. Hoping Apple can resume providing Error Messages feedback in Photos like it does in Image Capture.

Now to delete from the iPhone all the imported photos...🤷‍♂️

Have you tried, as a workaround, using Image Capture to download photos to a folder on the Desktop and import from there? Just connect the iPhone to your Mac with its USB cable and launch Image Capture.

I found the root cause of the issue. I run image capture and tried to import a set of 20 photos/videos and it did work for 4 and then stopped because the iPhone got disconnected and reconnected. It disconnected on a video, so I went back to the iPhone and removed that video (it was something someone sent over whatsapp), moved back to Photos and ta-dah! Everything is working fine now.

my guess is that there are some viseos and pictures with a bad encoding or some encoding that is somehow not being handled correctly during import which causes the iPhone to disconnect.

NiFa18 wrote: ... I had to import over 8000 files and was stopped during the import about 15 times to hunt for the corrupted photo/video... very annoying. Less annoying than not being able to import the files at all...

Videos seem most often to be the culprit -- their codecs are just not as standardized as jpgs. Even videos that say ".mov" can have vastly different compatibilities. The Image Capture app certainly works better than Finder dealing with incompatible files. Probably the best plan would be to import pictures first, and then attempt the videos.

I think stuff downloaded from web sites would be the last to try...

I have the same issue with my Mac book pro and iPhone11. The reason is that the photo library storage in the external drive couldn't import the images from the iPhone directly. I copy the photo library back to the Mac storage and then imported the images successfully.

alexsantisteban wrote: It seems that with the latest upgrades ExFat or other non-MacOS formats are not good.

This has always been the case. We users (and Apple) have been finding corruption of Photos Libraries for years that have been caused by using Photos Libraries from improperly formatted drives. Libraries may seem to be working fine for a long time until they are overwhelmed by degradation.

To avoid damaging the Photos Library an external drive must be formatted in either APFS format or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. Additionally, the drive can not have had Time Machine on it since it was formatted. There have been so many problems with using incompatible drives that the newest macOSs won't even allow a Library on a non-Mac formatted drive to open, since there is a chance of damaging the Photos database. See this:

Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support

Trust me i know this already, my external ssd is formatted in apfs, and i had no issues doing so before the sonoma update. Im running m2 macbook air, i was finally able to import my picture using image capture which is still an inconvenience and should work directly through photos app without having to run image capture.

My first external photo library was created last may 2024 and it was in a SSD ExFat formatted. I tried to import some new picture and the same problem"preparing...." and nothing happened. I formatted a new USB disk to MacOS Extended Journaled, (Boot Sector option) copied my old photo library from the ExFat SSD to the new disk, opened Photo app while holding down the option key, selected the new photo library and imported all the pictures without a glitch. Hope it helps!

Just had the same problem, could only resolve by not using 'import new' function but instead select individual photos and use import from iPhoto. As suggested it may be an issue with the MacBook library recognising what is new.