Automatic Import of Photos from iPhone to Mac (Photostream?)

[rawan]

Hi guys,

I've always kept a copy of all my photos locally on my Mac. But lately, have been relying on automatic uploads to Google Photos, which houses my 200GB+ photo library. I then I figured, since Google Photos-as great as it is-lacks any folder organization, and also contains photos taken with my DSLR etc, that I'd like to go back to storing a local copy of my iPhone photos, in albums, sorted by month.

With my previous iPhones and iPhoto, that was easy.. Everything was automatically synced to my Mac and placed in Photostream albums, by month. Which was great.

However, with the new Photos app, it seems to be more complicated than it should, and perhaps no longer available as a feature?

Any idea how or if I can still do that? Have all my iPhone photos sync with Photos on my Mac and store a local copy, organized by date?

If that feature is no longer available in Photos (as my research might have led me to), any idea how I can do that, perhaps with 3rd party apps?

Much appreciated,

Rawan

 

[rawan]

Any ideas?

 

[rawan]

No one?

 

[BrianBaughn]

Are you wanting to organize the photos yourself on the Mac or have Photos take care of the organization?

 

[rawan]

Thanks for the reply Brian. I don't care much about organization as much as I care about automatic imports. I keep all my photo collection on a network drive that is accessed by Windows PCs, smart TVs, a PS4 etc... So I don't particularly need the photos within the Photos ecosystem. Previously, in iPhotos, I used to have them in Photostream albums created by month. I'd simply drag that album out of iPhoto whenever I wanted to back them up to the network drive. Folders by month is about all I require in terms of organization.

 

[BrianBaughn]

I won't go into detail since you haven't locked onto a specific result desired.

You could use Dropbox on the iPhone to automatically copy iPhone photos to the "Camera Uploads" folder in Dropbox. On the Mac, you can create an Automator Folder Action to automatically move items from the "Camera Uploads" folder to a different folder (i.e. "iPhone Photos") on your Mac (this frees the space on Dropbox). You might be able to find an Applescript that will sort the photos by month and any such Applescript could be run within another "Folder Action" applied to the "iPhone Photos" folder.

One thing: Dropbox renames the photos in a manner such as this: Photo Nov 13, 10 03 08 PM.jpg

You can also have a Folder Action import photos to the Photos Library, if you wish.

 

[rawan]

Thanks for that!

I was hoping for something more of a local network thing than a cloud thing. I already have automatic uploads to Google Photos (they do get mixed up along with photos from other sources (DSLR, camera, etc...), so it's hard to isolate just the ones from my phone, in case you're wondering). I wouldn't want to be uploading to another cloud service, then downloading them to keep a local copy.

PS: Where I currently am, I have a limited Internet quota per month, the speeds aren't that good, and the upload speed is ridiculously slow. That's the main reason I'd rather keep it local rather than over the Internet.

I take it what I want is no longer natively supported in Photos?