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Import photos from Canon cameras not working in Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite

I spent all of my beautiful Saturday afternoon trying to find a way to import photos from my Canon EOS Digital Rebel to my iMac mid-2011 that I recently upgraded to Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite, only to find out that, according to Apple Support Chat, Canon no longer provides driver or software support for photo transfer from Canon cameras to Apple iMacs under Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite. I was told by Apple verbatim, "This is a Canon problem and you will just have to wait until Canon comes out with drivers and photo transfer software that works with Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite." Even though prior to Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite, Apple photo software (iPhoto, Image Capture, Aperture) and Adobe software (Lightroom 5) imported photos just fine from my Canon camera.


Now, as a part-time professional photographer, I know there are a lot of professional photographers out there who own Macs and Canon cameras. A whole lot. And for Apple's position to be "Hey, this is a Canon problem and you will just have to put your business and livelihood on hold because Canon needs to fix it" is well, a little callous to say the least. My response to the end of that Apple Support Chat was "You know I used to be able to upgrade my iMac to the latest Mac OS X release and not have to worry about compatibility issues. It just worked. Now it just doesn't." To which the Apple Support Chat response was "Have a nice day". I am not kidding.


Fortunately though, Canon technical support provided a workaround that Apple should also be aware of, but apparently isn't. Or else, if it is, it is not sharing that information with people who have active AppleCare Support agreements, which I do have. Apparently even the oldest Canon DSLR camera, which I happen to own, a Canon EOS Digital Rebel (the original), supports the Picture Transfer Protocol driver which is built into all Macs, even the ones with Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite. Canon technical support told me that all I needed to do was make a simple change on the camera settings. Change the Communication method from "Normal" to "PTP". That's it. When I did that, Image Capture was then able to see and transfer my photos. Although it still would not display the thumbnail previews for images captured in RAW format on my camera with the PTP communications setting, it did transfer those images in RAW format correctly to my iMac hard drive where I could then view them in Finder and Preview, and more importantly import them to iPhoto, Aperture or Lightroom 5 for editing.


So I am posting this not to ask a "How to solve this question", but in the hopes that someone else who is experiencing a similar problem will not have to spend an entire sunny Saturday afternoon in early November (a rare occurrence in the Pacific Northwest) trying in vain to export photos from their Canon camera that are critical for their business to their Apple iMac running Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite, which is also critical for their business, only to have Apple Chat Support tell them that they just have to wait until drivers are provided by Canon, when every Mac has a built-in driver that is compatible with all Canon DSLR cameras. Too bad Apple does not share this information with their Support personnel. Fortunately Canon does.

iMac (27-inch Mid 2011), OS X Yosemite (10.10), Safari 8.0

Posted on Nov 8, 2014 8:09 PM

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11 replies

Jan 14, 2015 3:18 PM in response to tbirdvet

I am running Mac OS X 10.10.1 Yosemite and iPhoto Version 9.6 (910.29). Automatic updates in the Mac App Store is turned on for my iMac and it shows no updates available. I was told directly by Apple Support on the date that I wrote this article (Nov 8, 2014) that there were no Canon drivers and photo transfer software that worked with Yosemite. I was told by Canon that the workaround was to change the communication method from Normal to PTP on the camera, which did provide a solution. At that time I was running Mac OS X 10.10 (because the 10.10.1 update was not yet available) and the most up-to-date version of iPhoto for Mac OS X 10.10 that was available at that time, at least per the Mac App Store. I was told by Canon that the workaround was to change the communication method from Normal to PTP on the camera, which did provide a solution.


With the Mac OS X 10.10.1 update if the camera is in PTP communications mode the thumbnails now appear in the Import screen in iPhoto almost immediately. If the camera is returned to Normal communications mode; however, it takes forever for the thumbnails to appear. I have been waiting 10 minutes and iPhoto has generated only 14 thumbnails. So it appears that there is still something not working properly between the original Canon EOS Digital Rebel and Mac OS X Yosemite 10.10.1 when the communications mode on the camera is set to Normal.

Apr 28, 2015 4:12 PM in response to bodysurfinyon

It is a problem with Yosemite AND the Canon drivers for the older Canon cameras. However, the workaround that I shared here (changing the communications type on the camera) provides a workable solution, at least for my old Canon EOS Digital Rebel. And since my camera is older than your Canon Rebel Tli, this solution should work for you too. You can check for Canon updates to the drivers for your camera on Canon's website here: http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/support. Imports seem to be faster now with Yosemite 10.10.3 and Photos, but it is still slow to import RAW images from my Canon EOS Digital Rebel. This is more a function of the processor on the camera (and perhaps the type of USB connection), I believe. Buying a new Canon camera would probably solve everything, and as much as I wish that were an option for me, it is not practical right now. Besides, my old Canon EOS Digital Rebel serves me well for what I need to do with it. Hope this helps.

Import photos from Canon cameras not working in Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite

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