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

My MacBook Pro has the Monterey operating system, and was working fine downloading photos from my iPhone - until it wasn’t. I recognise the problem that you are talking about - this is what happened to my laptop too. I tried all sorts of fixes, with zero success, and this morning, I decided to plug the phone in as soon as I turned the computer on, without opening any programs or apps on either the computer or the phone. After a short interval of sorting itself out, IT WORKED!!!

Trying moving them with Airdrop.

favio257 wrote: Im running photos application on my external ssd

The Photos Application should be on the Mac. The Photos Library can be moved to an external drive, but to avoid damaging the Photos Library an external drive must be formatted in either APFS format or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. How is your ssd formatted?

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

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. It seems that with the latest upgrades ExFat or other non-MacOS formats are not good. Hope it helps!

thank your idea work. I transfer my 11k gallery in one shot 6k import and 5k is getting trouble then after deleting some WhatsApp videos its work and all 5k import in one shot......

Hi M_ttyG,

Thank you for participating in the Apple Support Communities. If you are having issues with your Mac, here are a few steps that may be useful:

1. Restart your device to see if the issue is still there: Shut down or restart your Mac - Apple Support

2. Confirm that your device is using the most recent software to rule out the older one: Update macOS on Mac - Apple Support

3. Try the steps here to see if they help: Photos - Official Apple Support

4. Contact Apple Support here if you need further support: Apple Support

Have a great day.

NiFa18 wrote: .. I just cannot fathom why it would stop importing each time it comes across a corrupted file.

Well, yeah. When I was trying to recover files from old DVD and CD backups, this was very frustrating. I ended up using an app called Teracopy (from the app store) that didn't choke on corrupt files during a copy. I see that it gets a whopping 2 1/4 stars -- but it worked for what I needed. There may be other choices...

Hi, I had been having the same problem since I bought a new Mac mini with macOS 15.5 (Sequoia) last week. So, I formatted the external SSD with APFS and I think my problem is solved now. Before that, my SSD was formatted with ExFAT and they show photos but were not able to import any photos.

I have been having the same issue—since upgrading to Sonoma on all 3 of my MACs (Studio, Mini and MacBook Pro), I can no longer import any pictures from my iPhone, nor can they be copied to the desktop and then dragged into Photos. This is so frustrating, and I can not seem to get an answer. This has been an issue for some time now, and there seems to be no update to rectify it.

Im running photos application on my external ssd and it wont import photos from my iphone to my external ssd photos application. Im running mac os sonoma, This has to be the sorriest operating system i have ever used. How can something so simple thats been done for decades on crap computers cant even be done on my m2 macbook air.

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favio257 wrote: Trust me i know this already, ...

I'm sorry, I don't actually know you. It looks like I will need to get my AI mind reading tools adjusted.

I'm glad you got it to work. Image Capture is an app provided by Apple to do just what you wanted to do. Handy.

Apple is a snake...a ruthless, hungry, greedy company that has doesn't care about its users. Been like this for years now. Sometime I forget who they are for a while and buy another iPhone. But then I'm reminded of this fact as I fight to do simple tasks like importing my photos.

Apple. Do better. This is not rocket science. You had years to fix this really basic flaw. You

my new $1000 macbook air won't do something as simple as import photos from my iPhone.

I had to call tech support and he didn't have any advice. he was completely stumped.

I have used Apple products for 20-25 years. But they have lost me as a customer since I bought this laptop a month ago.

There was a time I could count on Apple for reliable, simple, intuitive software and UI. Everything worked almost flawlessly from day one, with rare exceptions.

There was a time it was worth paying a premium for Apple, but that time is gone.

I am returning this laptop to Costco.

the W'rkncacnter wrote:

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.

Thanks for the note. But importing from iPad works OK for me with Image Capture and Photos also while exFAT formatted external thumb drive is connected (Sequoia).

I am having a similar issue and Image Capture, which is my usual default for managing images, does not work either. Image Capture also appears to let me delete images from my phone but I found after plugging the phone back in the photos were still there.