How do I import all the photos into all my Apple devices?

For a long time I have had 885 photos in a folder labeled unable to upload on my Mac. I think since iPhoto changed to Photos. The dates cover 20 or more years

I can see the photos in the library on the Mac.

Finally I decided to do something so I exported all 885 photos to a folder on my Mac and then imported them into Photos.

The import on my Mac says only 657 photos were imported.

I had never looked at my iPad. It doesn't have the unable to upload folder. The import there reports 278 photos imported.

I can't find the folders on my iPhone

How do I import all the photos into all my devices?

I run Sonoma 14.5 on my 2023 M3 Macbook Pro 16" and iPadOS 17,5,1 on my ipad



[Re-Titled by Moderator]

MacBook Pro 13″

Posted on Jun 1, 2024 7:31 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jun 1, 2024 10:30 PM

Photos and videos in the "Unable to upload" folder are usually items in a format, that is no longer supported with the more recent system versions, so they cannot be synced with iCloud to your other devices or processed by Photos and need to be removed from your Photos Library. All items, that you cannot import on your Mac should be converted to a different format. Remove all PDF images or scanned images using color sync profiles, that are no longer installed. Convert videos, so they only are using the H.624 or HEVC codec.


You may need to use a third party app to do the conversion or a computer with a system version that still can process the older formats. I used Handbrake and Graphic Converter to convert the videos and image files. It may only be a few items that are causing the problem - Photos will stop the import, when it encounters several items that cannot be imported. Try to identify the problematic items by importing them in small gropes, not all at once.

How to Weed out Legacy Media in Photos for Mac - Apple Community


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2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jun 1, 2024 10:30 PM in response to tommmy

Photos and videos in the "Unable to upload" folder are usually items in a format, that is no longer supported with the more recent system versions, so they cannot be synced with iCloud to your other devices or processed by Photos and need to be removed from your Photos Library. All items, that you cannot import on your Mac should be converted to a different format. Remove all PDF images or scanned images using color sync profiles, that are no longer installed. Convert videos, so they only are using the H.624 or HEVC codec.


You may need to use a third party app to do the conversion or a computer with a system version that still can process the older formats. I used Handbrake and Graphic Converter to convert the videos and image files. It may only be a few items that are causing the problem - Photos will stop the import, when it encounters several items that cannot be imported. Try to identify the problematic items by importing them in small gropes, not all at once.

How to Weed out Legacy Media in Photos for Mac - Apple Community


Jun 2, 2024 12:19 PM in response to léonie

Thank you Leonie.

You show interesting reasons I may be having trouble

Unfortunately you don't address my problem: why was I able to import 657 items out of 885 into my Mac. How do I locate those that were still unable to import?

Why does my iPad show import of only 287 items out of the original 885? Why the difference between the Mac and the iPad?

When I exported the items to an outside folder they were all .jpg

Tommy

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How do I import all the photos into all my Apple devices?

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