Photos on iPhone asking me to unlock my phone?

[Willabong]

No idea how to do this as I only use the iPhone for emergency calls? I have just started to take pictures with my iPhone and want to transfer them to my iMac, but Photos is asking me to unlock my iPhone and I have no idea how to do this?
And advice/help would be appreciated. iPhone 11.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Does you phone use Face ID or a passcode to unlock? When you pick up the phone, can you slide up on the lock page and get to the home screen without doing anything special?

When your phone is plugged into a Mac for the first time, you need to unlock it and then trust the connection to allow it to copy stuff.

 

[Rod]

Hi Willabong, as I have no idea how you have this iPhone setup I'm a bit mystified by your question. I and the other members I think, will need a few more details to answer your question.
Currently most of us use Apple"s iCloud Photo Library to sync photos wirelessly between our various devices because the old "My Photo Stream" is dead, but let's suppose you're not doing that. Let's suppose you are just connecting your iPhone to your Mac with a USB cable.

Do you have a PIN number that you use to unlock your iPhone? If so then the Mac will probably ask for you to enter that PIN number when you connect your iPhone. Depending on what operating system you are using on both the Mac and the iPhone both may ask you if you "Trust" the other device requiring you to enter the PIN number again.

So, there are lots of new security measures introduced in recent years and to give you an answer to your question we really need a few more details:

What Mac are you using?
What macOS is it running?
What iOS is your iPhone running?
Are all your devices logged into iCloud on the same Apple ID (account)?
How are you connecting your iPhone to your Mac?
And lastly, describe, step by step, what you do when you try to connect your Photos app to the Mac.

There are no silly questions here, fill us in with the above details and we will do our best to answer your questions.

 

[Willabong]

I've done that but cannot get my iPhone or iMac to sync so that I can transfer the photos from my iPhone?

 

[IWT]

@Willabong

Could this be what you are asking about?:

You've taken photographs on your iPhone. Now you want to transfer these in to your Mac. You attach your iPhone to your Mac via a USB or similar cable - Yes?

Then you get a message saying to unlock your iPhone?

This happens if (1) your are connecting your iPhone to your Mac for the first time. In that situation, you will be asked to trust your iPhone on that Mac and, maybe, asked to trust your Mac on the iPhone?

(2) Your iPhone and Mac are already "friends" ie you connected your iPhone to this Mac previously?

In both scenarios, being asked to "unlock" your iPhone = entering the iPhone Passcode/Password (Face ID is not accepted in these situations, only your Passcode).

When the Passcode is entered and the iPhone has access to the Mac, you then need to determine where the photographs are to be sent - most often this is your Photos App - in which case, you open the Photos App and your iPhone should appear on the left. Click on it. All the photographs on the iPhone will appear. Select those you want to import, then Click on Import.

If I've got this all wrong, please tell me and give a bit more detail please

Ian

 

[Willabong]

iMac 2017 27" running Monterey, iPhone 11 latest OS, Connected via USB cable,
I've cleared the first to problems with unlocking the iPhone and I think the two devices are synced, because my iMac briefly displayed the photo's on my iPhone.
But now the link is not visible and I cannot see the Photo's to transfer them?

 

[Rod]

Does the iPhone appear under Devices in the sidebar of the Photos app?

 

[Willabong]

You are right Ian, but there is no sign of the iPhone in Photo's on the iMac, everything else you stated is correct!
I have to say that I am not sure if the iPhone uses the same iCloud account as my iMac?

 

[Rod]

Check in Setting on your iPhone if the name and details are the same as your iMac. It's at the very top of Settings on both devices.
Click on it for details of your Apple ID. It's likely they are both the same.

 

[Willabong]

My iMac has just decided to perform an update, so I will need to wait until it has finished - sorry about this, will post a reply after it has finished!, In case you are wondering, I am connected to this forum using my desktop PC.

 

[Willabong]

iMac has just finished updating the OS, and I re-connected my iPhone and was told I needed an upgrade to be able to access my phone, so I allowed the update and now my iPhone connects without a problem!
Life is strange sometimes?

Thanks to all of you for helping a poor lost soul who is very good with PC's but hopeless with Mac's.

 

[IWT]

Well, there you are. Problem solved. Which is great news for all of us. Need more help? Just ask.

Ian

 

[newbutter]

Since your iMac briefly displayed the photos from your iPhone, it seems like the devices were indeed synced for a moment. The fact that you're not seeing the photos now could be due to a few reasons. One common issue is with the Photos app itself. Sometimes, after an OS update, the app needs a bit of time to re-index the photos, especially if there's a large number of them.