Apple Photo's will not import or Sort Albums

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Level 1

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Apple Photo's will not import or Sort Albums

I have been having a hassle for ages now, I even bought a new Apple Studio in the hope that it would sort out the issue but it still will not do anything.

Apple Photo's will not import anything newer than May 2024, I have loads of photos on the iPhone which I want to get onto the computer or in the iCloud but when I try to import anything it just does nothing at all.
I have created loads of Albums, not the smart type, I have then selected 'Sort by Name' and in the Apple Photo's App it sorts all of the items, BUT, on the iPhone all of the folders are in a mess no sort order at all, there are a lot of albums missing and a lot are empty and there should be photos inside the folders and yet there is nothing?

Is there a fix for this? or does anyone recommend a different App that I can replace 'Photo's' with?

The ability to catalogue the photos are more important to me than any editing as I will edit most of the photos that I require on the Mac using 'Capture One'.

It would be nice to get this working, I have upgraded the phone to a iPhone 15 Max Pro whatever and my Mac from a iMac 5k to a Apple studio and this has not fixed any problems at all.

Kind Regards

James

iPhone 15 Pro Max, iOS 17

Posted on Sep 12, 2024 1:54 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

léonie

Level 10

203,403 points

Sep 12, 2024 2:32 AM in response to jamessawle

Where is the Photos Library on your Mac stored? If it is on an external drive, you may want to check the file system format.

Photos on Sonoma will no longer import any photos, if the file system format is not compatible with Photos, for example, if it is ExFAT. Earlier versions of Photos would let us import into a library on an incompatible drive, even if the library could get damaged and would not work any longer. Any external drive used with Photos should be prepared as described here: Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support

I am using PowerPhotos from FatCat Software to mitigate some of the shortcomings of Photos as a catalogue on a Mac. The most recent version of PowerPhotos is also working well with an iCloud Photos Library.

On the iPhone and iPad I am using Photos only for viewing. As it is so hard to keep the albums on an iPhone sorted, I am using plenty of hierarchically nested folders. And keep the number of albums in the folders small, and the albums only small. This avoids a lot of scrolling.

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Answer 2

Sep 12, 2024 6:22 AM in response to jamessawle

It's the first we've heard of a problem like that-- I have not problems importing pictures. Where did your post-May pictures come from? Were they imported to the iPhone, or were they captured with its camera?

I presume you're using iCloud to sync Photos on your Mac and iPhone, is that right? Do you have Optimize Storage set on either device?

Have you re-started in Safe Mode? This bypasses certain potentially disruptive processes. Safe Mode is different for different computers, so see this:

Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support

Have you tried creating a new, empty Library and importing to that. That would tell us if the Library itself were the problem. You can create a new Library by closing Photos and then option-clicking on the Photos icon.

Have you tried making a new user account to see if there are problems with the account itself?

Maybe we can figure this out...

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Answer 3

jamessawle Author

Level 1

20 points

Sep 12, 2024 5:52 AM in response to léonie

Hi,

Photo's is installed on an External SSD (8Tb Mac OS Extended (Journaled)), I remembered this document from when I first moved the drive due to the Studio having such small space.

James

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Apple Photo's will not import or Sort Albums

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