The exclamation point on an iPhone photo means that the photo is not original but just a copy of original that’s been compressed.
Apple has cloud storage and cloud computing service called iCloud, which enables Apple users to store their data on a remote server. By this, one can access their data from any device even if their Apple device is not handy.
iPhones have a setting to upload the photos to iCloud. The original photos will be uploaded to iCloud. If the iPhone is running on a low space, we will also have an option to Optimize iPhone Storage. This will replace the original photos on our iPhone with the optimized ones. This is when, we will see that exclamation point on the photo.
To get rid of that exclamation point, we will get to download the original photo from the iCloud. For that, select Download and Keep Originals option under Settings > Photos.
- You have iCloud Photo Library turned on on your device.
- The photos you are looking at are in iCloud, and can only be put on to your Mac/PC via iCloud Photo Library. You cannot import those photos directly from the iOS device since they are not in the Camera Roll.
- You can go to Settings -> Tap your name -> iCloud, on the phone and turn off iCloud Photo Library, and all of the photos that are in the All Photos album will no longer be on the device.
Once you follow the steps in the articles to get your photos downloaded to your Mac/PC, you can turn off iCloud Photo Library everywhere, and go back to the regular process of importing your photos to your PC: Transfer photos and videos from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support
But right now, there is no way to move those photos from your phone to your Mac/PC. You need to download them from the iCloud Photo Library to your PC.
