The steps Apple support has on the site do not work for importing photos from your iPhone to your Mac. I have been trying for over an hour and tried every single thing that I can think of or find online, including putting my phone in airplane mode. Why isn't this working? It's starting to seem like a glitch that apple put in on purpose to make you use iCloud at this point.
Image Capture is coming preinstalled in your Applications folder.
From your description "I tried the obvious steps of “import all new items” and selecting all my photos and trying to import them manually." I take it, that the Photos.app did show you the connected iPhone, also could separate them into "New" photos and "Already" imported, which is good. How long did you wait, after you selected to import "New" photos? Did Photos complete the import or have you seen an error message?
You have been looking in the "Imports" album for the imported photos. Have you also checked the Recents album? It may take a while for the photos to appear in Imports, usually they will appear in recents before we are seeing them in Imports.
How much free storage do you have on your Mac? If you cannot import large amounts of photos at once, try to import just one single photo. Can you at leat import a single photo?
Image Capture is coming preinstalled in your Applications folder.
From your description "I tried the obvious steps of “import all new items” and selecting all my photos and trying to import them manually." I take it, that the Photos.app did show you the connected iPhone, also could separate them into "New" photos and "Already" imported, which is good. How long did you wait, after you selected to import "New" photos? Did Photos complete the import or have you seen an error message?
You have been looking in the "Imports" album for the imported photos. Have you also checked the Recents album? It may take a while for the photos to appear in Imports, usually they will appear in recents before we are seeing them in Imports.
How much free storage do you have on your Mac? If you cannot import large amounts of photos at once, try to import just one single photo. Can you at leat import a single photo?
You would be surprised how often on here that “I tried all the steps that Apple suggested” turns out to actually be “I rang my son-in-law who’s good with computers and he said restart”. As always, we cannot see your machine and so we rely on you to tell us what’s going on. Our ability to help is limited entirely to the information you provide.
So: What iPhone and running what version of the OS? What Mac running what version of that OS? How are you connecting to the device? Have you tried a different cable?
I tried the obvious steps of "import all new items" and selecting all my photos and trying to import them manually.
Using which app? Photos? Image Capture? Something else? If it is Photos then have you tried using Image Capture to see if that works? Is the iCloud Photo Library turned on anywhere in the eco system? Have you checked your library to ascertain if they are filed under an unexpected date?
Until you tell us the actual steps you are taking, and where they fail, and any error messages you get, there's not much anyone can do to help, I'm afraid.
That is indeed surprising, and unfortunate. Well, in my case I meant I literally followed the steps. I’ve never submitted a question here and wrongly made the assumption that everyone who comes on here has tried the indicated steps.
iPhone 13 Pro Max, iOS 16.6 to a MacBook Pro macOS 11.7.6. I am using the cable that came with the computer to connect my phone, but I can try a different one. I used the photos app since that’s what the help site indicates should work. I have never used Image Capture so I will have to find and try that. I did check my library pretty thoroughly and haven’t seen them show up anywhere. I do have the iCloud Photo Library turned on but have limited storage since I don’t pay for it.
thanks for your help.
Okay. I thought the basic steps would be implied since I said I tried the steps Apple suggested, but here’s what I did anyway. I tried the obvious steps of “import all new items” and selecting all my photos and trying to import them manually. I checked other discussion boards and tried putting my phone in airplane mode. When I did any of these things, the screen would load for a while before changing screens to my “imported items” page but the photos would not be there. I checked my library and they were not imported. Those are the steps laid out on the Apple help site, and they did not work for me. Is there something I am missing?
Yes, Photos showed my phone as an option. But it’s not that I’m checking imports, it’s actually more like the app crashes and sends me to imports after I try to import the photos but the only photos there are some I took with a camera in 2021, nothing from my phone. They don’t appear in “recents” either that I can tell. The system loads for a few minutes with the rainbow ball and then the screen changes almost like it crashed and sends me to “imports” but there’s nothing there or anywhere else that’s new. I’ll try doing one at a time to see if that helps.
Apple's Steps to Import Photos Don't Work
