Photos app doesn't recognize my iphone when plugged in. how can i fix this problem?

This worked for me as well. To be more specific. Shut down your iPhone. Then do a soft reset(restart) on the iPhone by pressing the power button and holding it until the Apple logo appears, then release the and let it start normally. Then enter your passcode to unlock your phone. Photos should now see your iPhone. Just click on your phone under Import and take it from there.

I think I can help with this thread. This has been a frustrating issue for me, since I feel the photos app hasn't been the easiest to work with since transitioning from iPhoto. I contacted Apple support to shed some light on this and the support member did say this is a common issue, but also seemed as if they have several causes for this issue, depending on the individual user. I made the call while i was at work, so the agent was only able to give me suggestions, as i was not in front of my iMac. He asked if i had a dropbox account. I wasn't sure, so when i returned to the iMac, I searched for that application, but i did not have a dropbox account. This lead me to believe that I might have possibly downloaded a program that allows access to my photos. I downloaded the amazon photo app a few months back ( this amazon photo app was downloaded after my last successful photo backup). I deleted the app from my iPhone and plugged in my iPhone, only for the dreaded "white screen" to appear in the "import" tab with no photos to preview. I followed the procedure listed from user "Old Toad" and "RobertF8" from this same thread. After performing the soft reset and unlocking my iPhone, the "no photos" message appeared on the Import tab. I disconnected my iPhone and reconnected it right away. This brought up the imports tab again, recognizing my iPhone and sure enough, all of my photos appeared on my preview list and the "Import all" was finally clickable. This has been an ongoing issue for me for several months, as it recognized I had about 5,134 photos to back up from my last back up.

I think this might vary from user to user, depending on any non apple photo app that allows access to your photos. I feel this was a lousy way to go through these steps, as apple does not have a solid fix to this issue yet. If you have dropbox, I suggest closing the app from your iMac as well. Good luck.

iPhoto is able to detect my iPhone after following the soft restart. Problem is it will hang at downloading. Even after waiting for an hour, no photo appears. So I can't proceed with the import. No sure if anyone experiencing this. This happened around the same time after I did an iOS update in December 15. Issues also occurred for my iTunes backup. Intermittently, it will say that my iPhone disconnected. This is extremely frustrating.

I am having the same issue after trying everything that's been mentioned on this thread. Photos does not even open when my iPhone 6s plus is plugged in, and iTunes does and operates/syncs normally. When I open photos manually, no import options exist. If I select import from the pull down menu, it brings up a finder window and no iPhone is mounted as an option to import from.

Per Gale From Maine's reply above:

1. Connect your iPhone (or iOS device).

2. If Photos does not launch automatically, go to Launch Pad and open Photos.

3. The Photos window opens. Look at the top of the window where the menu is. There should be a menu which says "Photos", with < > arrows next to it.

4. Click on this and you can select "Import", which when you do, Photos will now recognise your device connected on USB.

I hope this helps.

Per Gale From Maine's reply above:

1. Connect your iPhone (or iOS device).

2. If Photos does not launch automatically, go to Launch Pad and open Photos.

3. The Photos window opens. Look at the top of the window where the menu is. There should be a menu which says "Photos", with < > arrows next to it.

4. Click on this and you can select "Import", which when you do, Photos will now recognise your device connected on USB.

I hope this helps.

I find that I sometimes also have to log out some (or all) other users to get Photos to recognize my iPhone. Restarting the phone is also necessary sometimes.

I had this problem while my phone was connected to my Mac through a hub that had a few other devices connected to it. I unplugged the hub and connected the phone directly to the Mac and then the phone appeared in Photos. What's odd is that the phone had appeared in iTunes all along.

I did a work around by sending the photo's via AirDrop.

Your files will be in the Finder/Downloads. Send these to Photos.

I think there was a photo format as about half way through this process I was able to complete the transfer through Photos.

You will also have to delete the photos from your 'recently deleted' file on your device. Long press and drag to the bottom of the screen was a good discovery to select items.

This fixed it for me. I was logged into two accounts and restarting the computer allowed Photos to see my iPhone. Thanks!

Plugged phone into a different USB port and that fixed the problem.

I was having this problem as well. My iPhone was plugged into an available USB port on my Apple keyboard. iTunes syncing no problem, but the phone didn't show in Photos. I unplugged it from the keyboard and plugged it directly into my laptop's USB port. Bingo, showed right up in Photos. Must have something to do with the power requirements being different for Photos? Only thing I can think of...because the keyboard doesn't provide the same amount of power to the devices as the built-in USB ports.

I had the same problem. The only way to fix was to restart the computer !! (restarting the iphone didn't work, neither re-pluging the USB cable)

Looks like this is the key for me. Bless you!!!!!!! Seriously. ~ Linda

Yep, same here. I tried all the other "remedies" (restarting my iPhone 6S Plus, etc.) and in the end, the only thing that worked was restarting OS X (El Capitain, 10.11.4). Go figure.