Difficulties importing photos

[badshoehabit]

I will never forgive Apple for discontinuing Photo Stream. Have wittered about this before but today I've had it with trying to transfer images from my phone to MBP (connected SSD). Constant messages 'Preparing to import photos' v 'Please unlock iPhone (34)' with no progress when I do what's asked. In addition, Airdrop works only intermitently at any time so if I want a 'quick' transfer I'm posting to myself on WhatsApp.

It's very frustrating - any answers out there on what I'm missing? And before anyone says use iCloud, I'm not paying Apple to store 65000+ images.

Off to copy from - free - Amazon Photos.

 

[IWT]

Sue; I'm with you re Apple's Photo Stream. A huge loss.

I have a few suggestions.

You are connecting your iPhone to your Mac by cable - yes?

Normally, you would then open the Photos app and see your iPhone listed on the left Click on that and it will, or should, show all your current pics/vids on the iPhone, from which you choose the ones you want to transfer.

If you are doing the above and it still fails to do the job, there is another way.

With the iPhone linked to the Mac by Cable, go to Applications and select "Image Capture". It should automatically display your iPhone on the left, under Devices. On the right, you should see all your pics/vids listed with the latest at the top.

Then Click on all the Images you want to transfer to your Mac. At the bottom on the left side you should see "Import To" adjacent to which an option will be displayed with up and down arrowheads. Click on the arrowheads and various options are available: Pictures - Documents - Movies - Downloads - Photos app etc.

Choose the Photos app and then Click on Download (there is an adjacent option to Download All, which I presume you don't want.

Let us know if that works please

Ian

 

[badshoehabit]

Only able to try Image Capture method now - at first MBC going bananas, flashing from app to app so fast I couldn't make any commands, bouncing back to Photos on the SSD (Samsung T7 Shield). However, persevered, dismounting both/either and plugging back in and have finally managed to transfer using Image Capture. Now feel safe deleting lots of shots on the phone.

Ian to the rescue, thanks so much.

 

[Slydude]

@badshoehabit, glad to see you back on the forums. I hope Ian's suggestion sorts this out for you.

@IWT I don't have a huge collection of photos so it has been a while since I used that method. On older machines, I sometimes found it necessary to transfer files in batches when dealing with a large collection of images. Is that necessary on newer machines?

 

[IWT]

Is that necessary on newer machines?

No. If your current version of the Photos app "misbehaves" in that respect, use Image Capture. I can't recall a failure with that app. Image Capture goes back to, at least, High Sierra. I know that because I've kept an old iMac with High Sierra for a special app that I need. It's used for nothing else.

An other little tip re Image Capture:

If, for whatever reason, you need to delete a huge number of photos/videos from an iDevice - doing it manually will destroy your faith in human endeavour if you attempt this manually on an iPhone etc.

Instead; attach the device to your Mac, engage Image Capture, as above. Then choose the images to remove - in my "total mess up" it was 19K images. I Clicked on Image 1, then used Cmd + A to select ALL, then Right Click on any one and choose Delete All. Now, retreat and have a bath or a long walk and it will clear all much faster than you could manually.

Even if the number of images to be deleted is not "ALL" it's still much quicker to run through the series Clicking the ones to delete and the Right Click again at the end and Choose "Delete" and only those chosen will be deleted.

Ian

 

[Slydude]

Thanks Ian.

I kinda thought that would be the case. My current workhorse is a used 16 GB M1 Mini that is light-years ahead of other Macs I've owned. I haven't needed to mass delete large numbers of photos but it has handled other similar tasks better than my previous Macs.

 

[badshoehabit]

@badshoehabit, glad to see you back on the forums.

Hi. Infrequent visitor now, as much because I don't often use my MBP which has the log in details! My phone gets a hammering and I use my iPad mini daily for reading. This MBP, despite early problems, has been a work horse and had a new battery from Apple under the scheme where they were setting on fire. When it dies I don't know wheither I'll have a new notebook although I defer to it when I have to write a lot or fill in forms. My stepmum died in January (aged 94) and I've been doing all the formal work for her estate on the MBP.

 

[Slydude]

Sorry to hear of your recent loss. Even when someone is in their '90s we're usually not prepared for that loss even if we see it coming.

That will be an interesting dilemma the next time you decide which gear to get. The last few iterations of the iPad are close enough to the performance of MacBooks to meet the needs of many users. The models announced earlier this week seem to be continuing that trend.

Although, if your MBP is anything like my last one it will be some time before you are faced with that decision.