Photo app and Image Capture constantly crash when importing photos

Same story for years and years. Trying to import a large quantity of photos from iPhone 13 Pro to my MacBook Air. Can't do it. Literally takes days because of the constant crashing, iPhone disconnecting (connected using original Apple lightning to USB-C cable) and slow transfer speeds. I can't do it anymore. This is a giant waste of my time. The software is wonky and unstable and never seems to get fixed, nor does it indicate what the problem might be causing it to crash/disconnect. I also now get a warning message when on the video function in the camera saying I am out of space. This has been an ongoing bug for years now. My phone has 120GB of space and can still take photos and cinematic video. I'm just fed up. Help?

iPhone 13 Pro with 500GB using OS 17.5.1. MacBook Air M1 1TB using Sonoma 14.5.

Posted on Jul 12, 2024 4:03 PM

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Matti Haveri

Level 7

20,610 points

Posted on Jul 13, 2024 12:54 AM

Remove all 3rd party virus apps (Avast, AVG, Bitdefender, Intego, MacAfee, Norton, ESET NOD32, Trusteer etc) and 3rd party "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up" apps (CleanMyMac, MacKeeper etc). They produce only obscure errors.

An EtreCheck report would eliminate much guesswork:

Using EtreCheck to Troubleshoot Potential… - Apple Community

How to use the Add Text Feature When Post… - Apple Community

If all else fails, backup, erase the internal SSD disk as APFS, install, and restore only user data files. Then one-by-one install only the 3rd party apps you really need.

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Top-ranking reply

Matti Haveri

Level 7

20,610 points

Jul 13, 2024 12:54 AM in response to michael79

An EtreCheck report would eliminate much guesswork:

Using EtreCheck to Troubleshoot Potential… - Apple Community

How to use the Add Text Feature When Post… - Apple Community

If all else fails, backup, erase the internal SSD disk as APFS, install, and restore only user data files. Then one-by-one install only the 3rd party apps you really need.

léonie

Level 10

201,823 points

Jul 13, 2024 2:05 AM in response to michael79

How much memory does your Mac have?

Photos seems to cash the photos to be imported in the RAM to be able to check for duplicates, and if you are trying to import too many at once, it may crash. If your Mac does not have much RAM, you may want to import the photos using Image capture and save them to a folder on your Mac.

Then try to import them in smaller batches from this folder to Photos.

michael79 Author

Level 1

6 points

Jul 13, 2024 4:25 AM in response to léonie

I have 16GB of memory. I was actually doing what you suggested but Image Capture crashed constantly as well. I tried small batch transfers, literally one photo at a time and it was still crashing. Neither Image Capture and Photos seem to handle exceptions if there is a bad file. Trying to track down which are the bad files (which show up fine on my phone), if there are any, is an exhausting exercise.

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Photo app and Image Capture constantly crash when importing photos