How do I import photos from my iPhone 6 to my mac?

Still should do that, try to run updates on the Mac, if does not help ask that question again on Mac forums and make sure that you turn off icloud photo library beta on your phone by going to settings - icloud - photos.

My confusion is that I have my photos set to be stored in the cloud to save room on my device. If I then connect to my computer and try to save the photos using something like Image Capture, will I be saving the full resolution images, or will I only have access to thumbnails that are now stored on my phone? It's actually all quite very confusing. When did Apple get so "hard?"

If I then connect to my computer and try to save the photos using something like Image Capture, will I be saving the full resolution images

Full resolution.

I have not found this to be the case. I have checked the file sizes and they differ. For instance, I downloaded an image to my mac using image capture. The file size was 1.5 mb. I then emailed the same image from my phone, using the original and the size was 3 mb. Now I'm not really sure how to download my original, full resolution images off of my phone to my computer or external hard drive. I can't even switch back to storing original image size on my phone because I am told that I don't have enough storage space. This has become quite a nightmare as I have no idea where my images are, nor how to get them. Sure, they are in iCloud, but I feel that I am not in control of that, especially from a backup standpoint.

On your computer you want to go to icloud.com and login. Once logged in go to photos and you can view them directly in icloud and download original size files. On your phone optimization is already kicked in and yes, files are reduced in size.(significantly more then twice - may be more then 10 times).

iCloud Photo Library FAQ - Apple Support

I've tried this too and it doesn't seem to be working as expected. I signed into iCloud on my Mac. I went to the image I wanted to download. I downloaded it and looked at the file size. It was 1.4 MB. I then went to my iPhone and emailed that same photo in the original option. The file size was 2.8 MB. What am i missing here?

macorin wrote:

I've tried this too and it doesn't seem to be working as expected. I signed into iCloud on my Mac. I went to the image I wanted to download. I downloaded it and looked at the file size. It was 1.4 MB. I then went to my iPhone and emailed that same photo in the original option. The file size was 2.8 MB. What am i missing here?

No idea, sorry. That is why I posted FAQ's above that expected you to start asking. My experience is the one I described.

Yeah, I had read that over before I even came to the Discussions. My reason for coming here is that my experience didn't seem to mirror the one described in the FAQ. What happens when you email an image and choose "original?" What is the size? Does that size match the size of the same image that you download from iCloud? Can you test that for me and let me know?

I do believe email is not reliable since email always adapts the image size. I personally stopped using icloud photo library beta until it becomes alpha about seven months back. I am not about to start, so I can not run experiment for you. If you want to do that yourself just import and download the same file and compare the size.

Ok, I tested it on one device and file size downloaded from icloud and emailed are the same.

I appreciate you testing it out. I'm still having no such luck. Every image that I download on Safari on my mac from iCloud.com is about half the size of the image I email from my photos app on my iPhone. It really doesn't make sense at all, because I have the "Optimize iPhone Storage" option checked. If anything, the images on iCloud should be larger than the images I am emailing from my iPhone photos app. Are you storing originals or optimized versions on your iPad?

To be honest I do not want to experiment anymore. I do not want to use library so in order to do what you asked I had to create backup of my photostream in my camera roll (move about 300 pictures). Then upload all that to icloud library all that took about 2 hours. Then I downloaded and emailed myself the same image.

Strange part was that while it was email attachment in my email client (WLM) there was about 2% difference. But as soon as I got those saved in the same folder

Windows computer showed me the same size. Then just like the last time I started getting emails about upgrading my storage and I had to reverse all back and at that point I think that I still have to go tonight through my photos to figure out if I lost any. I am sorry, but I am done with experimenting, I did put optimization in preferences, but my device was not full enough to kick optimization in. I do not know what happens to you, but icloud images can not be smaller then originals according to anything Apple says - you may want to give a call to Apple.

Thanks, and sorry for your troubles.

Btw, I've also done what you have, where I've emailed and downloaded and checked them against one another on my hard drive, and yes, they are the same size on the hdd. However, why does the email say that I am emailing a file of more than twice that size? I understand that email is not reliable to gauge the file size, but more than twice the size? I could see being a few MB off.

Since until you see that size in the mail client, size can be anything client reads from the mail server until you download. How precise that info is needs to be discussed with people who support your mail client/server, but I would not really care until file is back to your computer anyway. That problem is as inconsequential as it can possibly be.