I'm experiencing a reoccurring problem. It doesn't matter whether Photos is launched before or after connecting my iPhone 12 Pro Max.
Problem: Photos on macOS freezes on the "unlock your iPhone" screen. No matter what you do it will never recognize the phone in this state.
Fix: Press Volume up quickly, then volume down quickly, and then press and hold the side button until you see the Apple Logo. This will fix the problem for the very next attempt to sync photos to your Mac. Afterward, all syncs fail again and photos will just freeze as noted above. Repeating the iPhone restart will fix it each time.
I've tried just about everything including resetting the trust between the mac and the iPhone. This is a bug that just doesn't have a fix as near as I can tell until Apple does something. However, it is also a problem Apple users have complained about for years too.
Problem: Photos on macOS freezes on the "unlock your iPhone" screen. No matter what you do it will never recognize the phone in this state.
Fix: Press Volume up quickly, then volume down quickly, and then press and hold the side button until you see the Apple Logo. This will fix the problem for the very next attempt to sync photos to your Mac. Afterward, all syncs fail again and photos will just freeze as noted above. Repeating the iPhone restart will fix it each time.
I've tried just about everything including resetting the trust between the mac and the iPhone. This is a bug that just doesn't have a fix as near as I can tell until Apple does something. However, it is also a problem Apple users have complained about for years too.