Transfer photos from iPhone 12 to SanDisk Portable SSD

Plug the Sandisk SSD into the iPhone's Lightning port, if necessary use an adapter or cable that can fit both the SSD and the iPhone.

For instance, if the SSD has a USB-C port:

click here ➜ Anker Lightning to USB-C braided cable - Amazon.com

With the drive connected to the iPhone, open the files App, and make sure the SSD has been detected and is accessible there under Locations in the Browse tab. If that is correct, then open the Photos App, select the photos you want to transfer, tap on the share icon, tap on "Save to Files" (you may need to scroll down a bit to see the option) and navigate to the External drive (you may need to tap on the < icon at the top, if you are in the "On My iPhone" location or some folder within that.) Select a folder or create one in the external SSD and and then tap on Save to start the transfer.

Is the cable rated for data transfer? Or just power delivery? Is it an Apple cable? Or third party?

How is the SSD formatted? The iPhone will mount and read fat32, exFat, HFS+ and APFS formatted drives. It won't mount drives formatted for Windows as NTFS.

Also, some drives may take longer to appear than others. If after 20 to 30 seconds it does not show up, try restarting the iPhone with the SSD unplugged, and then plug it in again to retry.

Download the Sandisk iOS app for their portable SSD.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sandisk-memory-zone/id6504174888

If the app doesn’t see (recognize) the drive it’s either cable or the drive has an issue. Reformatting shouldn’t be necessary if using the Sandisk app.

If it's an Apple cable, then it's rated for data and charging. So there should be no issue there. It's likely something about the drive.

You'll need to plug it into a computer, and check the drive's properties to find you how it's formatted.

Do you use it with a Windows PC? Or just with iPads and maybe a Mac?

Sandisk also has a free app in the Apple App Store to help facilitate the transfer.

Remember that if iCloud Photos is on and "Optimise this iPhone" is turned on, the copies on iphone may be low resolution. Downloading direct from iCloud may be a better option for a master archive.

Lori57 wrote:

Sorry for the delay and your patience... I have a MacAir (M2). I'm not sure what the term properties means or where to find it. Is it this: format is ExFAT, capacity is 1 TB, available 637 GB?

No worries.

That should work fine on an iPhone.

Before formatting I would give the SanDisk app a try on the iPhone and see if it can access the drive.