My 11 pro max was loaded with all of my iphone pictures from over the years, every time I upgraded phones I would just keep transferring my pictures to the new phone. Fast foward about 5 phones later and I have about 30,000 pictures I would like to transfer off my Iphone to an external SSD. It seems that now that we have the new usb port Apple has disabled the use of selecting multiple pictures for transfer. Being able to transfer all of my photos from my phone to an external hard drive was one of the features I thought I would be able to do with this new phone. Am I missing something? Are there any tricks to help me transfer all these photos? I really don't want to use the cloud unless I can just transer everything to the cloud then back to an SSD. I would like to be able to keep the dates the pictures were taken as well. Please advise. Thank you
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Best way to transfer multiple photos from 15 pro max to external ssd?
- Thread starter mikec35
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I do have a Macbook air, but unfortunately it only has 256gb and all the pictures on it are the ones backed up from my iphone. I've tried to back up the macbook onto an external hard drive but the problem is that it doesn't save the picture data, dates and places taken. I was hoping that if I was able to free up memory on my laptop I could move my pictures from the phone to it then to another hard drive. Thank you
That is odd as this metadata is embedded in the image file data itself. Backing up your Photo library should not remove this metadata.
I also looked for a way to do this. I spent an hour searching and didn’t find any way (other than a 3rd party app that I didn’t trust) to batch downloads directly from my phone to an SSD.
Ultimately, I used CC Cloner and my iMac (all my photos are in iCloud). I hope you find someone with a better answer because I would also like to batch download directly from my phone to an SSD. It’s one of the reasons that I purchased the Pro Max (faster USB speeds.)
Ultimately, I used CC Cloner and my iMac (all my photos are in iCloud). I hope you find someone with a better answer because I would also like to batch download directly from my phone to an SSD. It’s one of the reasons that I purchased the Pro Max (faster USB speeds.)
How to transfer every picture from your iPhone to an external drive
With the right software, it's easy to back up iPhone pictures and videos. Here's how to transfer photos from iPhone to external hard drives.
www.cultofmac.com
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Thank you. I did see that, but I’m not comfortable with the third party app they used.How to transfer every picture from your iPhone to an external drive
With the right software, it's easy to back up iPhone pictures and videos. Here's how to transfer photos from iPhone to external hard drives.www.cultofmac.com
I’d like to see something that’s native to IOS that allows you to batch copy photos to an external drive now that we have the ability to use high speed usb connections and cables. This seems like an easy feature to add and I can’t see why Apple has not added it.
App is ok, free, easy use, and if you want advanced version it is 3$. Otherwise a good program, but to pay is Imazing.
You can temporarily upload your photos to iCloud Photos. But make sure you have enough iCloud storage to accommodate your library.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
#2 is asking the right & best question for this. Get and use a Mac, import all photos to Photos on that Mac, maybe make some Photos albums of photos you'd like permanently on that phone, leave the rest on the Mac, sync those albums and done. Favorite photos (in the chosen albums) will also be on iPhone, the rest will be on the Mac. You don't even need iCloud (and its forever rent) for this option and Mac could store more photos than you'll ever take.
Besides solving the immediate problem, maintaining valuable photos on a mobile device is just begging to lose your entire photo library. Get it onto a Mac, use Time Machine on that computer to back that library up to at least 1 other drive but ideally 2 (with one always stored offsite) and then a loss of the phone would not be a total disaster for you. Else, you are living very dangerously. One unfortunate incident with the phone and it is all lost. And, in spite of your record to date, the total loss of a phone can happen very easily and at any time.
Per #3-#4, you'll need to get a good-sized external drive, copy the Mac Photos library to that external drive (which will preserve all) and then hold down the option key when opening Mac Photos to point to that new location of the Photos library. Make that the "default" location of the library in Photos "Preferences"
The only catch with this is that you must be sure that HDD is connected whenever you want to open the Photos app on Mac. Else, in not finding it, it will create a new library on the internal drive and you'll have to manually redirect to that external again when you realize what happened- which is often as soon as the app opens with zero or only a few photos.
Besides solving the immediate problem, maintaining valuable photos on a mobile device is just begging to lose your entire photo library. Get it onto a Mac, use Time Machine on that computer to back that library up to at least 1 other drive but ideally 2 (with one always stored offsite) and then a loss of the phone would not be a total disaster for you. Else, you are living very dangerously. One unfortunate incident with the phone and it is all lost. And, in spite of your record to date, the total loss of a phone can happen very easily and at any time.
Per #3-#4, you'll need to get a good-sized external drive, copy the Mac Photos library to that external drive (which will preserve all) and then hold down the option key when opening Mac Photos to point to that new location of the Photos library. Make that the "default" location of the library in Photos "Preferences"
The only catch with this is that you must be sure that HDD is connected whenever you want to open the Photos app on Mac. Else, in not finding it, it will create a new library on the internal drive and you'll have to manually redirect to that external again when you realize what happened- which is often as soon as the app opens with zero or only a few photos.
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I have all my photos on both my iphone 11 Pro max and my new iphone 15 Pro max. Also, I have all of the photos on my 2023 Macbook air M1. My main issue is I have transferred my phone and Macbook photos to a couple of different hard drives and am able to retreive them, but it's very slow and since you are not viewing them with the photos app it's difficult to view them. While in the photos app I can view both the date taken and the location. While retreiving from my various external drives I can view picture info and see the dates taken but the location info is gone. I am thinking I could maybe get a Mac mini 1TB and store the pictures there and view them in the photos app and retain the location data. I've spent so much money lately on my new 15 pro max and my laptop I purchased a few months ago I am thinking of getting a used 2014 Mac mini as a temporary storage device
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
I'm not grasping why you think you need a new Mac to import your photos. Since you don't have sufficient internal room on that MBair, you can simply move the Photos library to a big external drive, assign it as default Photos app library and then import all your photos from that phone(s) to that library. It will basically work just like you have more internal storage. And then you can just keep using it like that... with the Photos app using that library on the external HDD. It will retain all of the data- like location data- because you are basically importing the library of photos on your phone (and all related information) to the library on that MBair. Both will be using their respective Photos app to access those libraries.
Again, see that last link in #11 to move the Photos library on your MBair to an external drive. Then connect and import those iPhone photos and they'll pile up there.
After this is successfully accomplished, you might repurpose a couple of those existing externals as Time Machine drives to back it all up (your MBair AND your media) to protect against losing a Photos (app) based library, any other media important to you and the unique files on the MBair itself.
The one thing you have to remember is that the external Photos library HDD must be connected when you want to open Photos on that MBair. It needs to be able to "find" the library, else it will create a new one on the internal drive and then you'll need to redirect it again to the external drive. So just be sure that each time you want to open Photos on the MBair, you have the external "Photos HDD" attached and basically ready to provide the library to the app.
Again, see that last link in #11 to move the Photos library on your MBair to an external drive. Then connect and import those iPhone photos and they'll pile up there.
After this is successfully accomplished, you might repurpose a couple of those existing externals as Time Machine drives to back it all up (your MBair AND your media) to protect against losing a Photos (app) based library, any other media important to you and the unique files on the MBair itself.
The one thing you have to remember is that the external Photos library HDD must be connected when you want to open Photos on that MBair. It needs to be able to "find" the library, else it will create a new one on the internal drive and then you'll need to redirect it again to the external drive. So just be sure that each time you want to open Photos on the MBair, you have the external "Photos HDD" attached and basically ready to provide the library to the app.
Thank you, I am traveling this week. When I return home I will try to move the photos library as you suggest.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Have good travels. This will almost certainly work for you. Personally, I consider it a big step forward vs. "trusting the cloud" and/or all of the manual-based backup options... especially if- after you get the Phone Photos into this Mac Photos library- you then take advantage of Time Machine (or CCC or SuperDuper) to back up the entire Mac (including this library) on a couple of drives, storing one of them offsite and regularly rotating the two so the offsite one is always pretty fresh.
Precious media assets like photo collections (and home movies) need a very sound backup strategy to protect against worst case scenarios that might take out all such backups stored at one location (like at home). As little as one recent backup drive stored offsite delivers tremendous peace of mind by cutting the odds of losing such media towards 0%.
Precious media assets like photo collections (and home movies) need a very sound backup strategy to protect against worst case scenarios that might take out all such backups stored at one location (like at home). As little as one recent backup drive stored offsite delivers tremendous peace of mind by cutting the odds of losing such media towards 0%.
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i assume for time machine you would need a drive that is big enough to hold your internal hdd storage + external photo storage right?
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Yes, my broad advice for TM is simple: total storage of Mac or Macs to be backed up times at least about 3.
So if you have a Mac that has- say- 1TB of SSD and you shift a library or two OUTSIDE to- say- a 4TB drive, you have a 5TB Mac for this calculation.
Let's say you share a place with another person who has a Mac with another 1TB and they need sound backups too. Add their 1TB into the calculation.
5TB + 1TB = 6TB, so I'd buy TWO 18TB HDDs for TM backups, partitioning each as 15TB for Mac #1 and 3TB for Mac #2. Then set both up as TM for both Macs and store one of them OFFSITE after the backups complete. A good, cheap, secure offsite option is a bank safe deposit box but anywhere away from home/office that is safe & secure could work.
Regularly rotate TM Drive A and Drive B so the offsite one is pretty up to date. For me, that's every 30 days or so. Worst case scenario for me is fire/flood/theft takes out both local Mac(s) and local TM drive on day 29 in that scenario. I could recover all from the offsite backup but I would lose the latest 29 days of additional files. If 30 days would be too much of a recent file loss for you, make your rotation day every 20 days or every 10 days or whatever works for you.
OR, come up with a little short-term strategy for added protection of latest files. For me, I regularly sync new files on a desktop with a laptop, so I end up with 2 copies of fresh files anyway (laptop usually goes out with me, so it is also offsite when I am). Others might store the newly created file in the Cloud so they are both sort of onsite and offsite at the same time.
Why "times 3" instead of only a matching capacity amount? Because there are TWO distinct advantages of TM:
If $200 is too much, another "times 3X" approach is to base it upon existing total capacity used. So you check your 1TB Mac and discover you are only using about 300MB internally and maybe 1TB for that photo library on the externals and the other person is also using only about 300MB, you could multiple 300MB +1000MB + 300MB or 1.6TB times 3 = 4.8TB as minimum target TM drive size. Done this way, you might round that up to 5TB TM drives, which can be found for about $85 as I write this... or about $170 for two.
I prefer the full capacity approach because I assume data storage growth towards capacity over time. In 2 years, I'd rather the existing TM drives are still at least 3X actual capacity than fading to less than that because I've piled up more data, pictures, videos, etc. on my Macs.
So if you have a Mac that has- say- 1TB of SSD and you shift a library or two OUTSIDE to- say- a 4TB drive, you have a 5TB Mac for this calculation.
Let's say you share a place with another person who has a Mac with another 1TB and they need sound backups too. Add their 1TB into the calculation.
5TB + 1TB = 6TB, so I'd buy TWO 18TB HDDs for TM backups, partitioning each as 15TB for Mac #1 and 3TB for Mac #2. Then set both up as TM for both Macs and store one of them OFFSITE after the backups complete. A good, cheap, secure offsite option is a bank safe deposit box but anywhere away from home/office that is safe & secure could work.
Regularly rotate TM Drive A and Drive B so the offsite one is pretty up to date. For me, that's every 30 days or so. Worst case scenario for me is fire/flood/theft takes out both local Mac(s) and local TM drive on day 29 in that scenario. I could recover all from the offsite backup but I would lose the latest 29 days of additional files. If 30 days would be too much of a recent file loss for you, make your rotation day every 20 days or every 10 days or whatever works for you.
OR, come up with a little short-term strategy for added protection of latest files. For me, I regularly sync new files on a desktop with a laptop, so I end up with 2 copies of fresh files anyway (laptop usually goes out with me, so it is also offsite when I am). Others might store the newly created file in the Cloud so they are both sort of onsite and offsite at the same time.
Why "times 3" instead of only a matching capacity amount? Because there are TWO distinct advantages of TM:
- Mac Backup for recovery of everything in a worst-case scenario.
- The ability to go "back in time" to earlier versions of files. Sometimes, you can have a corrupted file and not realize it for a while. When you do realize it, you probably want to recover the last good version of the file. If you have a good amount of TM space, you can step backwards in time to the last good version and then recover it. A simple example of this benefit is imagining writing a book in an app like Pages. At some point, you accidentally delete chapters 2-6 but don't notice because you are regularly writing new stuff in chapter 18 to "the end." You finally write the final word to complete your masterpiece. Hooray! Now you want to review the whole book in a proof pass and that's when you discover the mistake. If you only have one "latest backup" of the book, you'll have to re-create chapters 2-6 from scratch. But if you can go back in time, you can go back to a version of the book file BEFORE the deletion and recover those chapters, reinsert them into the finished book and now you have the whole book!
If $200 is too much, another "times 3X" approach is to base it upon existing total capacity used. So you check your 1TB Mac and discover you are only using about 300MB internally and maybe 1TB for that photo library on the externals and the other person is also using only about 300MB, you could multiple 300MB +1000MB + 300MB or 1.6TB times 3 = 4.8TB as minimum target TM drive size. Done this way, you might round that up to 5TB TM drives, which can be found for about $85 as I write this... or about $170 for two.
I prefer the full capacity approach because I assume data storage growth towards capacity over time. In 2 years, I'd rather the existing TM drives are still at least 3X actual capacity than fading to less than that because I've piled up more data, pictures, videos, etc. on my Macs.
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I keep all my pics on the Mac. Some of them are on iCloud (I still have enough memory in the free storage space). But the most important moments are on my social media. I know it sounds odd, but that's how I keep the most important pics for me (wedding, birth of my kids).