iPhone pictures not showing up in Photos

Typically when i plug my phone into my Macbook Pro and open up Photos when i click my phone it shows all the pictures currently on my phone in the camera roll. It gives me the options to select which pictures i want to import then i can import them. Im plugging my phone into my computer for the first time both since i upgraded to the 6s and since i updated my computer to El Capitan. When i plug it in and open up Photos now, if i click on my phone it shows no pictures at all able to import. Help?!

Posted on Oct 2, 2015 7:57 PM

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42 replies

Aug 14, 2017 4:46 PM in response to wolverineandrew

A backup is only usable for doing a full restore to the phone. It doesn't result in viewable photos on the computer.

You can transfer photos to a computer in a number of ways:

via USB cable: Import photos and videos from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to your Mac or Windows PC - Apple Support

via 3rd party apps such as: http://www.photosync-app.com

via Photo Stream: My Photo Stream FAQ - Apple Support

via iCloud Photo Library which will result in a copy of all photos being on iCloud, on your Mac in the Photos app if you turn it on, and on your phone. You can turn on Optimize Storage to reduce the storage space required on the phone: iCloud Photo Library FAQ - Apple Support

Apr 23, 2017 10:42 AM in response to Macabilly5

Thank you for this tip. We have an Iphone 7+ and I started looking at posts because we gave up on APerture for our photos and decided that we needed to move over to Photos. The same thing happened with Photos, the photos app could not see the photos on the iphone. After trying your trick, the photos showed up in Photos AND they also showed up in Aperture. Thank you for the tip. I will continue to see if dropbox is also a variable in this equation. just wanted to thank you for taking the time to post this.

Aug 1, 2017 8:11 PM in response to wolverineandrew

tl;dr

I had this same issue today 08/01/2017 10:00PM on my iPhone 6s Plus

I plugged my phone into my iMac with a third-party cable.

My Mac prompted me that this computer needed to be Authorized for the 5 new apps that were installed recently

So I clicked Authorize

5 seconds later it says this computer is already Authorized

So I open the Photos App on my iMac and all my photos stored on the computer are there.

When I click on Import>iPhone it says no photos.


I searched and was taken here.

Saw all the steps you all recommended

Didn't feel like doing that.


So I hit ⌘ + q to quit the Photos App

Reopened Photos and it loaded the Photos on my iPhone.


I chose to import and delete after importing.

Thankfully I did not need to restart my phone, do a weird dance to get reception, nor stand on my head to get it to work.

Hopefully these steps work for others with this weird issue.

Aug 7, 2017 4:37 PM in response to wolverineandrew

I'm having this problem for the first time (iPhone 6+ running whatever the most recent IOS is, iMac running 10.12.6 Sierra). Photos sees some photos, but not all. There is a whole bunch I shot a couple of weeks ago that it refuses to see, although it has imported photos from just before and just after I shot them. I've restarted Photos, I've restarted the phone, and I've restarted the iMac. Still happening.

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iPhone pictures not showing up in Photos

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