Importing photos from iPhone to MacBook creates duplicates

Photos tries very hard, and usually quite successfully, to avoid duplicates in an import. Sometimes settings in one place or another cause pictures to have their format changed in transfers. A picture like IMG_1234.heic may become IMG_1234.jpg, or something. File size might change with different compressions; resolutions might change. So Photos will see these as different pictures.

I think that if I were you, I would use the app Image Capture from the Applications folder to import the pictures to a Finder Folder rather than to Photos. Then the pictures can be sorted by filename or date or kind or whatever, and it'll be easier to see more of what's going on.

Let us know what you find--maybe we can tell more…

rchluther wrote:… Tech is not my forte at all. I just feel like this should be so much easier and more intuitive.

Actually, that describes iCloud. It's all automatic.

I use my USB cord to connect my phone to my computer and import into Photos on the MacBook. At some point a few years ago, it started not recognizing some photos that were on my phone as having already been imported to my computer.

I don't want the number of photos on my computer and the number of photos on my phone to be exactly the same, because I keep a *LOT* more photos on my computer than on my phone.

Me, too.

I've never really used iCloud because I'm not sure how to import everything to my computer and then only keep some photos on my phone. I keep reading if I do that it will be all the same, and I like to be able to quickly find things in my created albums. I don't need to carry all that with me everywhere.

The way we handle that is to have two Photos Libraries. The Favorites Library, the one that's connected to iCloud, has only the pictures we want to share, and the Archive Library has all the rest. Others, like léonie, use a Shared Library that divides the Library into two parts: one part is shared and the other part is private. The Shared part can be shared with family or just with yourself.

I used to hook it up with USB, go to the Import screen in Photos on my computer, and it would show every photo on my phone that wasn't already downloaded to my computer. Then I could move them into albums on my computer, and keep or delete them on my phone.

Now there is a big chunk of photos, that just keep reappearing as needing to be downloaded. I do have the High Efficiency setting on. I often get double downloads where one is HEIC and one is JPG. I did just go change the "Transfer to Mac or PC" because it was set to Automatic and now it's going to say "Keep Original".

As I said in the Link I sent earlier, edited pictures are really just information in the database-- they aren't files until they are transferred, and they may be different each time. The files that Photos is accepting are different. As léonie said, you may get a file that's IMG_1234.jpg, one that's IMG_1234.heic, one that's IMG_E1234.jpg, etc, and they all might look the same.

I feel like this should be so much easier than it is. And I guess I'm just stuck in a loop now where they are different and I don't know how to make them the same. I even tried with one photo to airdrop it from my computer to my phone. Delete the one that was already on my phone, and redownload it to my computer. Within a week it was showing up as a new photo that needed downloaded again.

"Keep Original" should help. Let us know…

Can you please tell us a bit more, how your are importing?

• Which system version is running on your iPhone?
• Und what are the Settings on your iPhone? Please check the Settings > Camera > Formats. as Richard has mentioned, this setting will matter, if it is set to High Efficiency.Then the ipHone will save new photos in the space saving High Efficiency format. When you transfer these items, they should be transferred as HEIC files to your computer and not as JPEGs, because they otherwise will always appear as new photos. The Settings to avoid the conversion are here: Settings > Apps >Photos > Transfer to Mac or PC. Set the checkmark for "Keep Originals". https://support.apple.com/en-us/116944#working

I have not used the manual transfer by USB for many years now. The easiest way to avoid duplicates is using the automatic syncing with iCloud. Then I will always and automatically have the same photos on all my Apple devices, my Macs, iPhone, iPad, Vision Pro and in iCloud, including all edits and metadata.

The transfer by USB used to transfer only the unmodified originals, but now it may also transfer and include the edited version, so your Mac will see a second file with an "E" appended to the name for the edited version, particularly, if you have set the camera to crop the image to a different aspect ratio, different from the 4:3 aspect ratio of the sensor. This will result in two files when taking the photo, to uncrossed sensor version, 4:3, and the cropped version, square or 16:9.

Do your duplicates have an "E" appended to the filename?

rchluther wrote:…If I import my pictures to a finder folder through Image capture and sort them, how will that tell me what's going on?

I'm not sure what you're doing, really, so I don't know what it will show. In part, that's the idea.

Another thing that happens is if I edit a photo on the computer, it comes through to the computer as the original (but only sometimes?).

I'm not sure what "comes through to the computer" means.

But if I edit that one on the computer, it considers it not the same as the one that came through and next time I try to upload photos it shows it as a new photo again. It's so annoying and I just don't understand it!

It may help to see this:

Basic Terms and Concepts About Photos