Photos on Mac cannot import most HEIC photos taken with iPhone

Question

Level 1

15 points

Photos on Mac cannot import most HEIC photos taken with iPhone

Hi all ☺️

Each year I download all the photos / videos taken on my iPhone and store them on an external hard drive to free up space on my phone.

Occasionally, it would be really useful to be able to view all the photos I've taken in the Photos map interface if I'm looking for photos taken at a specific location.

However, when I drag the photos from my hard drive onto Photos, I keep getting error messages like this:

These images load just fine in the Finder, or in Preview, or any other app ... so why is Photos having a problem viewing / importing them?

If there isn't a work-around for this issue, are there any other apps that can display a folder of thousands of geo-tagged photos on a map?

Many thanks!

David

MacBook Pro 16″

Posted on Nov 19, 2024 3:34 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Richard.Taylor

Level 6

10,254 points

Nov 19, 2024 7:57 AM in response to Hogster86

As léonie says, the problem might be with the Library, so it might be worthwhile to rebuild the Library. But first, I would try these things:

Restart the computer (of course)
Re-start 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

Those are the easiest things to try first. Then try these:

Use another library if you have one, or make a small test Library with a few pictures in it and see if you still get the same errors. You can create a new Library by closing Photos and then option-clicking on the Photos icon.
Make a new user and see if the same problem recurs with it. It's easiest if you use a fresh Library with the new user.
Rebuild your Photos Library--close Photos and re-launch by option-command-clicking the app icon.

The idea is to find out if the problem is with the Library, with your account, or with caches and login items, and stuff like that. One of these steps may fix the problem, but their failure to work narrows the possibilities.

Reply

Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

197,291 points

Nov 19, 2024 5:28 AM in response to Hogster86

It might be a problem with your Photos Library. Where is your Photos Library stored? Is it in your Pictures folder or on an external drive?

If the library is kept on an external drive, you may want to check the file system format. It should be MacOS Extended (Journaled) or APFS, and the drive should have a wired connection, see: Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support

Reply

Answer 3

Hogster86 Author

Level 1

15 points

Nov 19, 2024 9:50 AM in response to Hogster86

Ok so I seem to have stumbled across the solution 😀 ... which is in 2 parts:

Drag a smaller number of images on at a time. 1,000 seems to be a reasonable figure. For the majority of transfers, doing 1,000 at a time seemed to work just fine.
Occasionally it would hick-up and say all the images I'm trying to add are in an unknown format ... but simply quitting and re-opening Photos then allowed me to add the same images without an issue! 🤷🏻‍♂️

Hopefully this helps anyone else out there who might be having similar issues!

Many thanks,

David

Reply

Answer 4

Hogster86 Author

Level 1

15 points

Nov 19, 2024 6:06 AM in response to léonie

Thanks for your quick reply léonie!

This is on a brand new Mac so the Photos library is as per a fresh install of the operating system. The Photos Library is in the Pictures folder.

The photos are stored in a normal folder on an external hard drive, having downloaded them from the iPhone using Image Capture.

Many thanks,

David

Reply

Answer 5

Hogster86 Author

Level 1

15 points

Nov 19, 2024 8:25 AM in response to Richard.Taylor

Thank you Richard! 🙏🏻

I will work my way through your suggestions and let you know if any of them made a difference.

I just rebuilt the Photos library by holding option and Command whilst opening it but that didn't make a difference sadly ...

Will report back on my findings 👍🏻

Thanks again!

David

Reply

Answer 6

Hogster86 Author

Level 1

15 points

Nov 19, 2024 1:24 PM in response to Hogster86

As an update to this, even using this process above, sometimes it seems there are still handfuls of images (10-50 or so out of thousands) that refuse to import ... but for so few images I can't be bothered to investigate why 🤣

Also as an aside, when it's in it's "don't want to import your images" mood, it will very quickly scan through the 1,000 images before displaying the error message (like within 5 seconds) ... whereas when it's actually importing them it will go through about 5 images a second as it adds them ... just something to look out for if you're having similar problems with importing large numbers of images.

Reply