Transfer albums from iPhone to Mac: IMPOSSIBLE

[mxrider88]

Hi, I have photos on my iPhone organised in albums, perfectly organised. In the albums there are photos I have taken and photos that people sent to me.

Now, airdrop: impossible. It goes on timeout or it stops half way or whatever. It doesn’t complete the task, there are too many files.

iTunes/finder: can’t see the folders from my iPhone.

Image Capture: same as above, I see only the camera roll.

Third party app (Dear Mob): I can see the albums I created but the photos are seen and imported in random order.


Is it possible that with thousands of dollars of devices I CANNOT import the albums I spent ages to create??
It is just ridiculous!

Does someone have a solution for this please? It makes me incredibly angry and frustrated. I can’t believe that with a $200 Oppo phone and a $300 netbook from any Chinese brand this can be done with a simple drag and drop and with this bullsh** Apple ecosystem this can’t be done!!

thanks to everyone who will try to help

 

[tyc0746]

Have you tried the Photos app that Apple provides for this function?

Don’t use it myself as I don’t do a lot of photography, but I use iMazing for moving other files back & for the between iPhone, iPad, iMac, Mac Pro, etc.

 

[mxrider88]

Of course I did.. it doesn’t see the albums from the iPhone. Ah the ecosystem...

 

[mw360]

Hi, I have photos on my iPhone organised in albums, perfectly organised. In the albums there are photos I have taken and photos that people sent to me.

How did you create these albums? In what app?

 

[StumpyBloke]

iCloud photos enabled on your phone?

 

[akash.nu]

You’re comparing albums with folders. Albums just tag the pictures, they don’t create folders.

The photos app should work especially if iCloud is enabled without you having to drag or drop anything anywhere.

 

[mxrider88]

I created the albums on the iPhone, in photos.

I don’t want to use iCloud because after buying a AUD 1800 iPhone with 64gb I refuse to pay for cloud storage but I would pretend that photos on my Mac can allow me to import the albums I created on my iPhone.

I just find it ridiculous. A joke.

 

[akash.nu]

I created the albums on the iPhone, in photos.

I don’t want to use iCloud because after buying a AUD 1800 iPhone with 64gb I refuse to pay for cloud storage but I would pretend that photos on my Mac can allow me to import the albums I created on my iPhone.

I just find it ridiculous. A joke.

If you’re not using iCloud then you’re not really in the ecosystem properly as you were talking about. The whole ecosystem is based around iCloud services.

Having said that, I’ve never tried to migrate things offline personally so not sure exactly what the new photos app does.

Hope someone else can chime in.

 

[mxrider88]

My tone was sarcastic about the ecosystem. Apple MacBook not syncing with Apple iPhone. A joke.. so to be able to use a basic function like syncing I need to pay extra? For real now?

 

[akash.nu]

My tone was sarcastic about the ecosystem. Apple MacBook not syncing with Apple iPhone. A joke.. so to be able to use a basic function like syncing I need to pay extra? For real now?

It should work in theory. I’d hope the album metadata would get copied into the native app. But since I’ve not tried this myself offline I’m not really sure of the exact steps.

Using iCloud, you don’t even have to do anything. As long as both devices are connected to the internet you’ve got access to everything everywhere automatically. Which works for me really well given how cheap iCloud storage is. It was a no brainer for me.

I’m sure someone in the forum has tried this and should be able to guide you how to do this offline. You must be missing some settings somewhere.

Personally I don’t understand why people loath using iCloud. I mean you’ve spent so much on the actual hardware that a few extra pounds/ dollars a month makes no difference. iCloud storage is cheaper than a cup of coffee from Starbucks.

 

[mw360]

My tone was sarcastic about the ecosystem. Apple MacBook not syncing with Apple iPhone. A joke.. so to be able to use a basic function like syncing I need to pay extra? For real now?

It’s no joke, Apple are quite serious. Manually moving files around your local storage is something they’ve been trying to eradicate, for better or worse for many years. If you use Apple workflows you’re stuck with what they support, how they support it, and for only as long as you can pay for it. I won’t go as far as to say they make it deliberatly difficult to make your own workflows, but they do make it very easy to use the sanctioned ones while not giving any consideration to much else.

 

[ifxf]

try the 3rd party app Transfer

 

[mxrider88]

I’ve tried pretty much everything by now.. it just won’t work..
To explain again maybe a bit better this is what I do. I have photos in my camera roll taken from my iPhone, I save photos coming in from iMessage, airdrop or WhatsApp and they go in the camera roll too.

from there I create albums to organise the photos the way I want, mostly chronological (travel etc).

when I open photos on the Mac I can’t see the albums

when I try to transfer with an external app like dearmob for example, I can see the albums but when they get imported they are completely out of chronological order so I end up with photos from a trip in random order instead of sequential order.

(this is not me actually it’s my girlfriend doing all this on her phone but I wanted to make the story simple).

What upsets me is that with her previoua phone, a Samsung s8, she was doing the exact same thing then connect the phone to the computer drag the folder on the desktop and boom, problem solved.

 

[xbpr]

I've tried this in Mojave and can confirm it doesn't work. Unfortunately, without using iCloud it seems like the only way to make this work is import the photos from your camera roll into the Photos app on the Mac and create your albums there. Then, sync everything back to the phone.

 

[mxrider88]

I've tried this in Mojave and can confirm it doesn't work. Unfortunately, without using iCloud it seems like the only way to make this work is import the photos from your camera roll into the Photos app on the Mac and create your albums there. Then, sync everything back to the phone.

exactly... very practical, fast, intuitive and user friendly. Add that with Catalina you can’t sync the phone properly and yeah what a magic experience.
What an absolute joke..

 

[Madmic23]

Have you thought about using Google Photos? That would keep your photos in sync across everything and save space on both your phone and your computer since all photos are stored online. You can use the free version with unlimited storage so it wouldn’t cost anything. Your photos would be downsized if they are over 16 megapixels, but if you’re just using iPhone photos that wouldn’t be a problem.

Using this method, you’d be using the iPhone photos app as a camera roll only. With automatic backup turned on in Google Photos, everything would upload automatically.

 

[akash.nu]

Have you thought about using Google Photos? That would keep your photos in sync across everything and save space on both your phone and your computer since all photos are stored online. You can use the free version with unlimited storage so it wouldn’t cost anything. Your photos would be downsized if they are over 16 megapixels, but if you’re just using iPhone photos that wouldn’t be a problem.

Using this method, you’d be using the iPhone photos app as a camera roll only. With automatic backup turned on in Google Photos, everything would upload automatically.

Even with Google photos the album meta data issue will remain for the OP.

 

[randomgeeza]

My tone was sarcastic about the ecosystem. Apple MacBook not syncing with Apple iPhone. A joke.. so to be able to use a basic function like syncing I need to pay extra? For real now?

To be frank and yes I agree with your sentiment. However, if you can afford an $1800 AUD iPhone you can afford to pay for a few weeks of extra iCloud Storage; allowing you to migrate your content as you want. Just pay it and move on. Welcome to the world of service and subscription. You can cancel as soon as you have the content where you want it.

 

[mxrider88]

Have you thought about using Google Photos? That would keep your photos in sync across everything and save space on both your phone and your computer since all photos are stored online. You can use the free version with unlimited storage so it wouldn’t cost anything. Your photos would be downsized if they are over 16 megapixels, but if you’re just using iPhone photos that wouldn’t be a problem.

Using this method, you’d be using the iPhone photos app as a camera roll only. With automatic backup turned on in Google Photos, everything would upload automatically.

well... it might be a solution but i am Google free.. and I wouldn’t hand my pics to google, willingly....
[automerge]1586677500[/automerge]

To be frank and yes I agree with your sentiment. However, if you can afford an $1800 AUD iPhone you can afford to pay for a few weeks of extra iCloud Storage; allowing you to migrate your content as you want. Just pay it and move on. Welcome to the world of service and subscription. You can cancel as soon as you have the content where you want it.

It isn’t that I can’t afford cloud storage, I just refuse to pay for something just because it’s a workaround for something that should be plain simple.
And I’m telling you more, I am seriously considering migrating to other platforms due to this Apple idiotic behaviour.. if it wasn’t that I don’t trust google with data or Chinese brands I would have migrated to other platforms probably since 2018 or so

 

[randomgeeza]

Pride often comes before a fall. And nothing is perfect. Apple are a business they want your $. You've been advised how to go about resolving this, if you refuse on principal then that kinda ends the conversation. Best of luck.

 

[mxrider88]

Pride often comes before a fall. And nothing is perfect. Apple are a business they want your $. You've been advised how to go about resolving this, if you refuse on principal then that kinda ends the conversation. Best of luck.

dude, I refuse yes. Do I have to pay to be able to manage my photos? Are you for real? Sorry, I’ve been a big Apple supporter and fan for the longest time, but I’m not a sheep.
how about they charge you to charge your battery from next week on? Will you get over and just pay because they want your money?? Be real man.

 

[randomgeeza]

Why don't you just airdrop your pictures over per Album, and then create the albums on your Mac. Jesus. Life does not need to be this hard. 1000's of people are dying and you have a first world problem like this, build a bridge and get over it!

 

[maflynn]

[MOD NOTE]
A number of posts were removed due to rules violations. Please be on-topic and be respectful.

 

[Powermax]

I just enabled iCloud photos and I love it. Before, I kept it all on my Mac and occasionally synced the pictures to my iphone and iPad but it didn’t really work well. Now everything is in sync. The only downside is that I have to pay a couple of bucks a month for the extra storage but I think it’s worth it. If you can afford it, it definitely is the best way to go, especially because manual syncing in Catalina is totally broken and airdrop is not really working well with big files or lots of files.

 

[alvincth]

Why don't you just airdrop your pictures over per Album, and then create the albums on your Mac. Jesus. Life does not need to be this hard. 1000's of people are dying and you have a first world problem like this, build a bridge and get over it!

For me as I don't want my photos to be synced in cloud, I AirDrop my photos from iPhone to Mac. I would prefer organising them in Finder rather than Photos (as I don't like Photos for Mac). Yes, just AirDrop photos by album and each time I transfer within 300 photos to ensure it works well.