iPhone 16 (iOS 26) photos not importing to Mac (Monterey)
I have an iPhone 16 running iOS 26.3 and a 2016 MacBook Pro running Monterey 12.7.6 (the newest software compatible with my laptop). Ever since updating my phone to iOS 26, I have been having trouble importing pictures from my phone to my Mac’s Photos app. Anywhere from 0 to 3,000 pictures of my phone’s 18,000 pictures show up. Ever since I got my first MacBook and iPhone, I have imported pictures by plugging in my phone with a cable and I was hoping to continue using this method longer. iOS 26 seemed to mess this up for me.
Things I have tried:
- I confirmed that iCloud Photos is off on both devices.
- I tried importing pictures from my friend’s iPhone 16. It worked while he was running iOS 18 and did not work a few hours later when he updated to iOS 26.
- I CAN import pictures from my phone to a 2019 MacBook Pro running iOS Sequoia 15.7.2
- Cleared ~150 GB of space on my laptop
- Viewing the pictures in Image Capture also shows 0-3,000 pictures depending on the day. At one point, I got a message on my Image Capture that says “Could not open a connection to the device module”
Does anyone know of a fix for this? Is Mac OS Monterey too old for iOS 26?
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 12.7
