I have very many pictures and videos on my iPhone that simply cannot be seen by either Photos or Image Capture. I can find no way to access or download them at all. Suggestions?
MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.3), Since MacPlus, everything.
Where are these photos housed? What is the Album name that they are showing under?
Cheers,
GB
I should add - this is an iPhone 5S that is running 9.2.1, connecting to a laptop running 10.11.3. Also, I can connect and sync the phone to Photos without problem, but it will only see and download new photos. Everything prior to some date around late last year is inaccessible.
The photos are currently on the iPhone. They're under the default album names - 'All Photos' and 'Videos'. No unique album names have been created.
In the Photos app on your device, click on Albums. Are the photos in the Camera Roll? There is no "All Photos" album.
Cheers,
GB
Hmmm...well, no - there's no Album called Camera Roll. The Album names showing are All Photos, Selfies, Videos, Screenshots, etc. All are default and unedited. And the same applies on the phone. No such album as 'Camera Roll'- I think that disappeared in recent years/OSes, didn't it? Not sure....
Are you using iCloud Photo Library?
Actually - based on what you indicated, you are:
Get help with your iCloud Photo Library - Apple Support
iCloud Photo Library FAQ - Apple Support
In which case, you wouldn't be importing at all, as all of your photos are in iCloud. You can download those photos to your Mac by following the instructions in the support articles above. Sorry, but I do not use iCloud Photo Library, so beyond the support articles don't know how much help I can provide 😟
Cheers,
GB
This issue is driving me insane - I know have 549 photos on my iPhone, but when I connect it to Photos app, it says, 'No Photos'. My iPhone is completely unusable as it's so full, and there seems to be no way to get these photos off the phone? Help!
Where are your photos located? Are they in your Camera Roll? When you click on your phone icon in the sidebar you should see the "Already Imported" photos. You can click on the "See All", then select the photos you want to import. However, if they are showing up there, then you probably have the option to Import your Photo Stream to the Photos app. If you have that option selected, then as you take photos they are imported automatically.
Just check to see if the photos you are referring to are in your set of Imported photos, or in the Photos view. If you see them there, you can safely delete them from the phone.
Cheers,
GB
The photos are on the phone, in the All Photos Album. This is my wife's phone, and although she is a member of my iCloud 'Family', the Photos app on my Mac cannot see her photos, because iCloud Photo Library is turned off there, for the reason that my entire photo library is far larger than even the largest iCloud account, and so I cannot have it turned on. My own phone works fine - it has iCloud Photo Library turned off, and I download photos from it via USB. But connecting the wife's phone via USB just grabs random photos from the phone. I cannot turn off iCloud Photo Library on her phone because her iCloud Library is far too big to download to her phone. And I cannot download all 2000 of her photos from her iCloud account because it's impossible to pick them other than one at a time.
It's a conundrum....
If you are seeing the All Photos album, then she has iCloud Photo Library on. If she turns on Optimize Photos the Photo Library will manage the number and size of photos on her device. Take a look at the two iCloud Photo Library articles that I posted right above your post.
When you are using iCloud Photo Library, you don't import photos, they are sync'd to iCloud. This article may provide additional clarification:
Import photos and videos from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support
Best of luck,
GB
Thanks for your (it's late in Maine!) reply... Yes, iCloud Photo Library is turned on, and she already has Optimize Photos turned on, so most of the photos on the phone are already lowrez versions. The problem is that the phone can no longer download the full rez versions of the photos as that library is simply too large now. And as I said, the web iCloud Photos app is useless as you can't select 'Download All Photos' - you have to pick them one by one. All I want to do is stop iCloud photo syncing on her phone grab all the full rez photos from wherever I can get them onto my Mac, at which point I can delete the photos from the phone and start out afresh with a workable plan.
I've been through all those articles and unfortunately there's no help for this problem in any of them. It seems I'm really very stuck. But many thanks for trying to help.
I finally got out of the hole. I was wrong - in the web iCloud Photo Library I was in fact able to click the first picture in All Photos, hold down Shift, and click the last picture and then select to Download all the pictures and videos. It was again, but it worked - I downloaded the full rez versions from the web, imported them into Photos, then got busy deleting them off the phone. Now I have some working space, I can finish the job by turning off iCloud Photo Library on the phone.
Once all that's done, I believe I can then consider if I want to turn iCloud syncing back on across all three devices. I also discovered I was wrong about the size of iCloud I could get, and I upgraded my account (at least temporarily) to be able to sync the main library back to the web.
You need to turn off iCloud Photo Library on the phone before you start deleting photos from the phone. With iCloud Photo Library turned on, anything you delete on the phone will be deleted in iCloud, and on and other devices or Macs that are signed into the same iCloud account with iCloud Photo Library turned on.
Cheers,
GB
Cannot download photos or videos from iPhone
