Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Some videos won't transfer from Photos to External Hard Drive

I always back my photos&videos up by copying them to an external hard drive and have been doing this for years. However I'm having troubles now as some videos won't transfer over to the hard drive when I drag them from Photos to my hard drive. It's only some videos, others transfer without a problem. And these are only short clips taken with my iPhone, most of them only some seconds, the longest one probably only 3 minutes..


No explanation pops up or anything, the files just don't move. I've tried different hard drives and it makes no difference.

Any ideas why this is happening?


I'm running out of space on my computer and I don't want to delete anything before I solve this problem.

Oh, I have a MacBook Air, currently using Yosemite version 10.10.5 with 3GB free.


Thanks!

MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2014), OS X Yosemite (10.10.5)

Posted on Feb 2, 2018 9:44 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Feb 3, 2018 11:09 AM

I'm running out of space on my computer and I don't want to delete anything before I solve this problem.


If you are saving these as a backup do you can delete the videos form Photos you should not be dragging and dropping them - you need the actual original which you can only get by exporting the unmodified original (in Photos File Menu ==> Export ==> export unmodified original


Same for both Photos and videos - drag and drop gives you an undefined preview usually of lower or much lower quality than the original


LN

Similar questions

8 replies
Sort By: 
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Feb 3, 2018 11:09 AM in response to helga0808

I'm running out of space on my computer and I don't want to delete anything before I solve this problem.


If you are saving these as a backup do you can delete the videos form Photos you should not be dragging and dropping them - you need the actual original which you can only get by exporting the unmodified original (in Photos File Menu ==> Export ==> export unmodified original


Same for both Photos and videos - drag and drop gives you an undefined preview usually of lower or much lower quality than the original


LN

Reply

Feb 3, 2018 11:09 AM in response to helga0808

I'm having troubles now as some videos won't transfer over to the hard drive when I drag them from Photos to my hard drive. It's only some videos, others transfer without a problem

When you drag videos from Photos, you are not saving the originals but the previews of the videos.

So Photos needs to render previews of the videos, and it may not be able to render the previews, if you are running out of storage or cannot process the video codecs. Try to use "File > Export > Export unmodified original" instead of drag and drop. Then you will save the videos in their original quality and not the previews in a reduced quality. Can you export the unmodified originals?


What kind of iPhone do you have and which version of iOS are you using? The iPhone may be using the new HEVC codec for the videos, that a Mac with Yosemite cannot process, see: Using HEIF or HEVC media on Apple devices - Apple Support

Reply

Feb 2, 2018 11:28 PM in response to helga0808

I tried exporting it didn't work

What happened. Did you get an error message? If yes, what has the message been?

If some photos or videos could be exported, what was the first video, that did not export? And what has the filename extension of that video been?

Reply

Feb 3, 2018 8:45 AM in response to léonie

No error message, in fact a message comes up on the left top of the screen saying that exporting was successful but then the video had not exported to the folder a chose.

Then I tried exporting some pictures and that worked just fine, its just some videos..


But okay great, I'll try upgrading to the Sierra! Thanks so much for your answers!

Reply

Some videos won't transfer from Photos to External Hard Drive

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.