The normal way is to turn on photo syncing through iCloud.
No way in hell I'm putting personal photos up on the Cloud!
Other than that, the next normal way is to connect the iPhone to your computer, open iTunes, and sync photos with the Photos app.
Knowing that I have never owned an iPhone before...
So I plug in the charging cable that came with my iPhone and plug it into the USB port on my MacBook?
You lost me on why I open iTunes which is a music player to work with photos?
You lost me on the connection between iTunes and the Photos app... Are you talking about these on my macBook?
And how do I "synch" photos again?
There is no "normal" way beyond that. The more effort you put into trying to use your iPhone in ways for which it wasn't designed the less happy you will be, because Apple puts a lot of effort into making things as effortless as possible. If you try to color outside the lines, all bets are off.
I don't like the idea of moving/copying/whatevering photos that I took on my iPhone to another application or app or whatever, because I am somewhat fearful that I will either lose the photos, or worse, that photos will be getting stored in places on my iPhone or MacBook that I don't know about.
I would be really pissed if pictures of my daughter or grand-daughter ended up someone that I dodn't know about and then wound up in the wrong hands because I didn't know those photos were there and thus couldn't delete them.
The reason for wanting to do a file transfer of photos from my iPhone to a folder in Finder is that I would maintain control of all photos on my iPhone and MacBook.
I have learned enough about computers over the years to know that computers (and presumably smart phones) have this incredible way of storing an enormous amount of personal data and caching it away in places that the user can't find them, but that a tech repair geek or hacker could find them and that worries me!
So there must be some compromise here and an *easy* way to take photos on my iPhone and keep track of all of them and move them to where I want and not have copies floating around which puts my family at risk.
Here is hoping you can help me attain this seemingly reasonable goal...
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On a Mac? Use Image Capture, it's an included utility.
What versions of OS-X or macOS has that?
I ask because I have an old Mac with like El Capitan or maybe Mountain Lion on it and then I have a newer Mac with I think Sierra on it.
Can I do this with both?
It'll mount the phone via USB, show all the photos/videos, you can bulk copy (or drag and drop selected content) to a "secret folder", and then even delete them (from the iPhone) as part of the process. Very simple.
That sounds exactly what I am looking for, and would be similar to how I am used to now plugging in my digital camera or a card reader, seeing all of the latest photos, cutting and pasting them to somewhere on my hard-drive, and I am done.