Why is it so hard to transfer photos from iPhone to Mac?

[bzgnyc2]

I know it has always been a painful experience to send photos from iPhone to Mac. Ever since 2007 you connected it, launched Photo Transfer app and hoped for the best.

I wonder how do you transfer photos? What is your go-to method to get footage off the iPhone?

I use Photos on Mac with the iPhone connected directly over USB. Wireless would be nicer in this day and age but I just use the moment to do a backup to my Mac and then get a full charge.

The Photos import step is just a few clicks. I normally just select all/delete after finishing and then complete any organizing in Photos.

By the way, I believe iPhone still offers a DCIM folder though it may hide it on the Mac side. As far as I know that's the one folder that Apple still exposes to computers over USB.

I recall they also used to make the Music folder visible that way but dropped that ability to load music into the iPhone many years ago. I would prefer the option to access the whole phone like it was a filesystem. iMazing gets close to that but I would prefer something more direct...

 

[IJustWannaTalk]

I think it's rare and you can be unlucky. This forum is obviously full of people who know about back ups or interested to learn but the vast majority of everyday people won't realise their data isn't backed up.

This is why iCloud+ can be so useful for everyday people, at least all their pictures will be backed up online and they seldom have to think about such.

 

[Contact_Feanor]

Well, in reality being locked in iCloud, specially if you take a lot of photos, is that in time you will have an enormous number of photos in iCloud you would have for. But what is worst, at least for me, is that the photos in my iPhone's Photos Folder aren't the original full-size photos I have taken with this cellphone, since these "originals" don't reside in my iPhone, but is iCloud.

There's a setting on the iPhone and on the Mac to download full-resolution photos to the device.

 

[AlaskaMoose]

There's a setting on the iPhone and on the Mac to download full-resolution photos to the device.

Yes, one can download the high resolution stored in iCloud, too. I just connect my iPhone to the computer and edit some or all the photos I have taken with it using one of the apps I have in my computer. I could also upload them from the iPhone to Photos, but I prefer to edit them with other apps, and then move some of the images to Photos.

And while I could accomplish all of this above, I have set my Mac's iPhone, and iPad to not sync anything to iCloud. So the photos I have in Photos are full resolution pre-edited images that take a lot of room in the computer, only if I were to keep them in there. Instead of storing them in the computer in Photos, and other folders, I store them externally, leaving behind relatively small images that don't take very much space in the internal drives (explained below).

Now, in my work computer, a Mac Studio, Photos is completely empty. In my McBook's Photos folder I only have images that are under 1MB in size (from 300 or so Kb to 900 or so Kb); these are images that I can email to friends and family. By the way, these images are edited for posting anywhere online and have all the original colors embedded, and each takes a fraction of a second to email, or text, and so on (some examples of these photos are in the Photo Of The Day Forum).

 

[JamesMay82]

Another thing to remember about cloud is that you can’t download full resolution photos from the iCloud website. You can only get access to full resolution if you download to your photos app..

Or you couldn’t at least when I last tried in April.. it would convert raw to JPEG’s

 

[AlaskaMoose]

Another thing to remember about cloud is that you can’t download full resolution photos from the iCloud website. You can only get access to full resolution if you download to your photos app..

Or you couldn’t at least when I last tried in April.. it would convert raw to JPEG’s

Thanks for sharing!

That is very interesting, and if true, it gives me another reason to avoid iCloud, since I was under the impression that I could download any of my RAW or unaltered files to an external SSD connected to a Mac or PC.

To other forum members in this thread: please understand that for me to not use iCloud to upload the files I have mentioned above is a personal choice as it works for me. I clearly understand the iCloud, Syncing, and so on works well for the great majority of people.

 

[decafjava]

Ok, I don't know what happened but the transfer from iPhone to my iMac photos app was flawless today. I will be taking more photos now that we got snow in the mountains here and try again this weekend.

 

[adrianlondon]

Ok, I don't know what happened but the transfer from iPhone to my iMac photos app was flawless today. I will be taking more photos now that we got snow in the mountains here and try again this weekend.

Snow! Nice. There are some places around here with snow - friends who live in such (boring, out of the way) places are making me jealous. It's just cold and grey here 😁

 

[MilaM]

I've never understood paying for an iPhone, a tool, and the cellular plan you need to use that tool, but not wanting to pay a little extra for the storage of all the precious memories you record with that tool.

It's not just "a little extra". Fifty years of iCloud Drive 2TB will cost you ~6000 USD. And that's not taking into account future price increases, which are inevitably going to happen.

 

[stephenschimpf]

It's not just "a little extra". Fifty years of iCloud Drive 2TB will cost you ~6000 USD. And that's not taking into account future price increases, which are inevitably going to happen.

I understand that for some people that's "big money," but for me it's not. If money was really tight, I'd be using a cheap Android phone, not the top-of-the-line iPhone. I'll be dead in 50 years, but even if I continue to upgrade my iPhone every two years for the rest of my life, the cost of iCloud storage is a fraction of what I'll spend on those iPhones. The benefits of using Photos and iCloud are, for me, easily worth what I consider to be a little extra money. (The dividends I get in one quarter just on AAPL stock pays for years of iCloud storage for me.)

 

[AlaskaMoose]

I understand that for some people that's "big money," but for me it's not. If money was really tight, I'd be using a cheap Android phone, not the top-of-the-line iPhone. I'll be dead in 50 years, but even if I continue to upgrade my iPhone every two years for the rest of my life, the cost of iCloud storage is a fraction of what I'll spend on those iPhones. The benefits of using Photos and iCloud are, for me, easily worth what I consider to be a little extra money. (The dividends I get in one quarter just on AAPL stock pays for years of iCloud storage for me.)

To me it is not about money, but an inconvenience I don't need. Then I have known some wealthy friends and coworkers who are "money pinchers," so much in fact that they would stop on the road to pick a dropped penny

 

[JamesMay82]

To me it is not about money, but an inconvenience I don't need. Then I have known some wealthy friends and coworkers who are "money pinchers," so much in fact that they would stop on the road to pick a dropped penny

Ha yes. My boss is a multi millionaire and I’ve witnessed him taking out lightbulbs from a light fixture that someone threw away in a dumpster! He also turns off data on his iPad so not to waste it even though he has unlimited plan 😂

 

[AlaskaMoose]

Ha yes. My boss is a multi millionaire and I’ve witnessed him taking out lightbulbs from a light fixture that someone threw away in a dumpster! He also turns off data on his iPad so not to waste it even though he has unlimited plan 😂

Sounds familiar. I have seen it with my own eyes.

 

[MGrayson3]

Dropbox automatically copies every picture and movie I take with my iPhone onto a captures folder. Couldn't be easier.

 

[BD2]

Dropbox automatically copies every picture and movie I take with my iPhone onto a captures folder. Couldn't be easier.

How do you arrange that, please?

 

[Mike Boreham]

Another thing to remember about cloud is that you can’t download full resolution photos from the iCloud website. You can only get access to full resolution if you download to your photos app..

Or you couldn’t at least when I last tried in April.. it would convert raw to JPEG’s

This is not correct. If you just select “Download” it will convert RAW to JPEG, but if you select “Download Options” you get these options and can download RAWS.

 

[JamesMay82]

This is not correct. If you just select “Download” it will convert RAW to JPEG, but if you select “Download Options” you get these options and can download RAWS.

View attachment 2581657

hmm interesting. I don't remember that option before. My cloud library is now empty so can't check myself.

I did just try to upload raw photos as the DNG that iPhones create and a ARW format from my Sony camera and it wouldn't let me choose them to upload. they were greyed out.

 

[Mike Boreham]

hmm interesting. I don't remember that option before. My cloud library is now empty so can't check myself.

I did just try to upload raw photos as the DNG that iPhones create and a ARW format from my Sony camera and it wouldn't let me choose them to upload. they were greyed out.

Yes you are right, you can't upload RAW direct to iCloud, but there is no problem importing RAWs into Photos and letting Photos upload to iCloud, and no problem downloading RAW from iCloud. Are you wanting to have your photos in iCloud Photos, but not use Photos app on Mac and iPhone? You could consider putting your photos in a folder on iCloud Drive if this is important.

 

[JamesMay82]

Yes you are right, you can't upload RAW direct to iCloud, but there is no problem importing RAWs into Photos and letting Photos upload to iCloud, and no problem downloading RAW from iCloud. Are you wanting to have your photos in iCloud Photos, but not use Photos app on Mac and iPhone?

No I just recently turned off iCloud and manage things manually between my macs and keep local versions..

I was just commenting above about the downloading of raw direct from the iCloud website but looks like it’s a non issue now…

 

[maxoakland]

I’ve also had problems getting my photos from iCloud to an external HD. It’s extremely slow for no discernible reason. The copies take so much longer than a normal file copy would take. It seems faster on iOS but it’s unreasonable to expect me to use iOS for that and I’m not sure if iOS would support my external hard drive

 

[maxoakland]

This!

Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

iCloud is the ecosystem.

If you’re not interested in using the ecosystem, fine, but that’s why you’re using work arounds.

In fact your current methodology is incredibly expensive.
Imagine a photo

If you lose your photos because they’re only accessible from iCloud and there’s some kind of outage, people are (rightly) going to say “you should’ve had a backup”

 

[maxoakland]

I take a picture with my iPhone. It is automatically uploaded to iCloud where it is safely backed up offsite. I open the same app on my Mac, and which accesses the same library, and it sees the photo, and can even be told to keep a local copy of the the full resolution photo, if I have enough space for that.

It couldn't possibly be designed any better. The days of manual syncing and losing irreplaceable content are long gone.

Now, in the real world, sometimes you're up against network bottlenecks, and iOS's own prioritization that cannot be overridden. It won't upload photos and videos if it can't, due to network conditions, or maxed CPU or low battery state. But, it shouldn't, either. This can sometimes feel frustrating, but that's just the user blaming the wrong thing.

That’s not a safe backup. It’s recommended to have at *least* a cloud backup and a physical backup

If you lose access to iCloud or Apple loses those files, you’ll never get them back

 

[Contact_Feanor]

Thanks for sharing!

That is very interesting, and if true, it gives me another reason to avoid iCloud, since I was under the impression that I could download any of my RAW or unaltered files to an external SSD connected to a Mac or PC.

To other forum members in this thread: please understand that for me to not use iCloud to upload the files I have mentioned above is a personal choice as it works for me. I clearly understand the iCloud, Syncing, and so on works well for the great majority of people.

Then you clearly have your answer to the question that is the title of this thread:
"why is it so hard to transfer photos from from iPhone to Mac?" Because of personal choices that work for you that make it hard, nothing intrinsic to the iPhone nor the Mac, which make it pretty easy to transfer photos.

case closed, mystery solved

 

[AlaskaMoose]

Then you clearly have your answer to the question that is the title of this thread:
"why is it so hard to transfer photos from from iPhone to Mac?" Because of personal choices that work for you that make it hard, nothing intrinsic to the iPhone nor the Mac, which make it pretty easy to transfer photos.

case closed, mystery solved

I don't have any trouble transferring files and photos from my iPhone or iPad when using Image Capture. I have already addressed the title of this thread pointing out that several forum members had already answered the question by listing the steps to take. I am also in agreement with the OP and some other forum members who mention some of the difficulties encountered when transferring images between iOS and Mac. If these difficulties weren't real, then there would not be a reason for anybody to create threads like this one. The questions asked by the OP in this thread are similar to a myriad of questions that are asked Internet wide, YouTube, and so on.

My reasons for not using iCloud are a personal choice of mine, nothing else.

 

[Contact_Feanor]

I don't have any trouble transferring files and photos from my iPhone or iPad when using Image Capture. I have already addressed the title of this thread pointing out that several forum members had already answered the question by listing the steps to take. My reasons for not using iCloud are a personal choice of mine, nothing else.

oooops, my bad, I mistook you for the OP, apologies for the snark.