Edited iPhone 16 photos not importing to Mac iPhotos

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Level 1

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Edited iPhone 16 photos not importing to Mac iPhotos

Not all of my photos from my phone are importing onto my desktop Mac's iPhotos library. If I crop a picture or shorten a video on my iPhone 16, these edits will eliminate that image from importing. Has anyone found a solution for the same issue?

I don't want to duplicate and save two versions of every photo. I also read that turning off iCloud on my phone will fix the issue, so I hope that will resolve it. That's not ideal but I'm good about offloading my photos regularly with a cable.

I have several thousand large/raw files and for this reason I've had to back up my photo libraries on external hard drives instead of on the subscription based cloud

iMac 24″, macOS 14.7

Posted on Jan 28, 2026 6:10 PM

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Answer 1

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Richard.Taylor

Level 6

17,589 points

Jan 29, 2026 10:05 AM in response to N0tc00l

N0tc00l wrote: …I also read that turning off iCloud on my phone will fix the issue

Are you trying to import pictures with a cable while you have iCloud Photos turned on? iCloud Photos synchronization and importing with a cable are incompatible. You should choose one or the other.

There's a big difference between importing pictures and synchronization using iCloud. Picture edits are stored in the database-- a finished picture file isn't created until you request it. Synchronization with iCloud Photos synchronizes the database, not just individual files.

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