Iphone Photo Importing to iMac has stopped working

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Level 1

14 points

Iphone Photo Importing to iMac has stopped working

Until the end of October whenever I connected my iPhone 13 Pro to my iMac it would eventually ask me on photos do I want to import new photos and I always did for secondary back up and to view them on the big screen.

Suddenly despite numerous attempts over a couple of weeks this function has stopped being offered and I now have loads of photos waiting to transfer. Yes they are safe in the iCloud but I would like them on my iMac as well.

Any ideas why this has stopped and more so how to adjust?

Don't want to delete anything in error or affect iCloud storage. Looking to get new computer in the near future.

iMac 21.5″, macOS 12.7

Posted on Dec 22, 2025 9:29 AM

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Answer 1

Dec 29, 2025 7:02 AM in response to hibs13

hibs13 wrote: … Gone into iCloud+ which I dont recall using before. Its show 19,468 photos and 1,806 videos

It. does show all my latest photos and videos.

So iCloud and your phone seem to be communicating. And yet, you say, " I connected my iPhone 13 Pro to my iMac." But are you using iCloud Photos to synchronize your Mac, or are you using a cable to transfer pictures? You can't do both, and trying to do both can get confusing results. Cable transfers can lose information-- iCloud is more dependable.

So, of the questions I asked earlier, do you have iCloud Photos turned on in the Mac at Photos' Settings>iCloud? Also there, do you have Optimize Storage turned on for Photos? Is your Mac connected to the same Apple Account as you were seeing at iCloud.com? You can go to the Mac's System Settings>[name] to see your account and iCloud data.

How do you do backups? Do you have Time Machine on an external drive, or do you just copy to an external drive?

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Answer 2

Dec 30, 2025 7:38 AM in response to hibs13

You have about 20K pictures in iCloud. 200GB may be tight if you also have iCloud Drive turned on? You didn't say how much of your iCloud storage is free. At System Settings>[name]>iCloud I see this

showing that I've used 175 GB of my 200 GB. If that gets to 180 GB, I will start removing stuff from my iCloud Drive that I don't need to be available on all my devices. I want to see at least 10% free.

You seem to have plenty of space on your iMac. If I were you, I'd first copy the current Photos Library to a backup drive, and then make a brand new empty Photos Library, designate it as the System Library, connect it to iCloud with Download Originals, and then just let it fill up with pictures from iCloud. It will take several days, but the result will be a clean, dependable Library. And you won't need to use the cable to transfer pictures-- it happens automatically. You can even keep your Photos Library on an external drive, if you'd rather not worry about the storage space. This might help:

Make a New System Library connected to iCloud

Let us know what you thing…

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Answer 3

hibs13 Author

Level 1

14 points

Dec 29, 2025 2:44 PM in response to Richard.Taylor

Hi Richard,

I need to look at this earlier in the day and focus. I do appreciate your help.

Just signed in and when I click photos on the tool bar they only show up to 31/10/25. If I go into iCloud+ they are up to date. If I delete from photos it is linked and removes them from both the iMac where I did the process and the phone.

I went into photos>settings>iCloud and it is not ticked. If I try and tick it it says to get 200gb account cost is £2.99 per month and may not be enough? I have 200gb and think it is trying to duplicate photos possibly though again I may well be wrong.

Think I recently did a back up on this iMac and also have a Seagate back up plus external hard drive but not updated that for a while and probably should.

I used to always or thought I always brought the photos in via import when cable attached rather than purely via iCloud.

Andy

ps tried to send photo but cannot get it on the computer

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Answer 4

hibs13 Author

Level 1

14 points

Jan 6, 2026 4:13 AM in response to Richard.Taylor

Hi Richard,

Happy New Year and thank you again for your communications.

My iPhone storage is 114.2 of 200gb with photos and videos being 99.04gb. I do need to do some housekeeping and remove lots of doublers and irrelevant stuff whilst needing to secure some precious memories and memorable events.

I will follow your advice and try this exercise to get all necessary data onto a secure external hard drive and create a new library. Just always been wary due to my lack of computer know how to start things and then potentially lose stuff I want to keep. Also thinking of joining Apple workshops to become better experienced of how to nothings and how systems operate. I love my Apple IMac but never used it to its capacity or got comfortable with it having been ok with a PC. A newer machine with better and faster technology will probably also help as my machine is 10 years old now and potentially lagging in its performance capabilities despite having a very large memory.

Thanks again.

Andy Howie

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Answer 5

Dec 22, 2025 10:49 AM in response to hibs13

hibs13 wrote: … for secondary back … safe in the iCloud

First, and importantly, there may be a misunderstanding here about iCloud. iCloud is not a backup for Photos, and while you pictures there are safe from your iPhone getting run over by a truck, but they are not safe from mistakes you may make! Mistakes, like deletions, are copied to iCloud just ask quickly and efficiently as pictures are copied. A backup allows you to go to the way your Library was yesterday or last week. iCloud Photos does not do that.

I don't understand "whenever I connected my iPhone 13 Pro to my iMac." Do you not have the Mac connected to iCloud Photos? If so, then why do you connect the phone to the Mac? The idea of iCloud is that it is used to Synchronize the Photos Library in all your connected devices. This doesn't involve any wires.

What iOS does your phone use?
What do you see at iCloud.com? Are all your phone's pictures there? How many?
What does your Mac's Photos say at the bottom of the Library? Like this:

Do you use “Optimize Storage” on your Mac? on your Phone?
Have you checked to see if the Apple Account is really really the same on the Mac and on the iPhone and at iCloud.com?
Do you have more than 10% free storage on your iCloud account?
Where does your Mac's Photos Library reside-- in the Pictures folder of your internal drive, or on an external drive? or on a network? on iCloud drive?
What is your storage on this iPhone? At Settings>General>iPhone Storage, my phone says 50.5 GB of 128 GB used. What does yours say? Do you have more than 10% free storage on your iPhone?
What is your storage on this Mac? At System Settings>General>iStorage, what does yours say? Do you have more than 10% free storage on your Mac?

Let us know…

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Answer 6

hibs13 Author

Level 1

14 points

Dec 28, 2025 12:47 PM in response to Richard.Taylor

Hi Richard,

Sorry for the delay. Hope you have had a good Christmas. Due to the time of year been very busy so not had chance to review your response fully until now and try and establish the information you have asked about.

Thank you for such a thorough review and I hope I can provide more info to make my situation clearer and hopefully resolve. I am not that techie so I hope I can explain myself. I have followed your thread and established as much of the info that I can.

IPhone 13 Pro

IOS 26.2, yes more than 10% storage available 89.5gb used of 128gb and I do not use optimise storage iPhone.

photos on iCloud storage on phone says 21,274 photos

iMac.

Have 1TB memory and only. used around 400gb. Machine is old model from 2015 and soon to be replaced.

It says photos 22,619 and 2,325 videos.

Gone into iCloud+ which I dont recall using before. Its show 19,468 photos and 1,806 videos.

It. does show all my latest photos and videos.

If I click on Photos app it only has photos showing up until 31st October 2025 which appears to be last date I downloaded onto the physical machine memory.

When using my machine I often plug my phone in to charge whilst I use the computer. When I used to do this the Photos app would open and it would then show any photos taken on my phone since the las download and ask if I wanted to import the photos> I always said yes so they were stored on my iMac as well as iCloud back up.

I have phone set as transfer photos to Mac automatic and apart from that can only assume that my phone and iMac are not linked as current photos show on iCloud+ account but not on photos when I open that tab.

Not sure how to get phone and iMac linked but will keep trying. Any help appreciated and certainly no rush here.

Andy

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Iphone Photo Importing to iMac has stopped working

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