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

[adrianlondon]

Surely for a few extra quid every month you could leave them all in Photos and view them wherever and wherever you choose, on either device, the web etc etc. Find them easily using Photos Search on dates, names, objects, places, titles, keywords.

Having said that, there is something in simply whipping out my phone and showing someone a photo I took many years ago. I often debate whether to pay for some iCloud (it's not expensive) but I've not gotten around to it. You've made me consider it again!

 

[tonmischa]

"Not complicated at all"? What about such a process NOT working at all, or crashing after just 500 photos are transferred?

Please differentiate between the process itself and its software implementation.
As I stated, the process itself is not complicated.
If it fails for you, it's a bug that should be investigated and fixed. However, just because you had trouble does not mean the process is flawed.

 

[decafjava]

I have not been able to transfer photos from my iPhone to my admittedly old iMac on Monterey ever since updating to iOS 26. I used to be able to open Photos on my Mac, plug my phone in and then new photos would appear and I could choose which to import. Now it shows old photos as new and doesn't see my latest pics. I have to use image capture to transfer my photos and it is rightly annoying. I am wondering if my iMac is too old to work as before.

 

[unkl bob]

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.

It was more or less okay back in the days when we didn’t shoot lots of photos and had 8 or 16gb of memory + no trash that we needed to sort out like screenshots or images from the web, or photos received from messenger apps.

As iPhone evolved you would naturally expect it to offer more streamlined process of sorting out photos, copying them, receiving them on Mac. But there is none such possibility, it looks about as outdated as if it still was 2007.

But now there is a Files app. And when you connect iPhone to Mac, it still only shows app folders.

Sure, workaround is “simple”: you sort out, select and copy photos from Photos app to folder inside Files app, then you copy that folder inside one of the application folders, such as GarageBand or Pixelmator or anything. But then when you copy bare folders, process might abort itself: turns out it doesn’t want to copy large folders (8gb+), you gotta pack it to zip first and only then it will copy.

So, why is it still so complicated in 2025?

Step-by-step literally looks like:
- sort photos
- copy them into folders you create
- zip them
- move to random app folder
- copy

Apple also gives another way: AirDrop. But it seems to fail 50% of the times, as well as when it works it is very slow.

On newer USB-C iPhones you can also connect flash drive/SSD directly to iPhone and copy, still no “eject” option though so it might be a VERY expensive way if drive fails for some reason or you lose data.

There is also option to use utterly complicated and cumbersome iPhoto Photos app, where it can also be complicated to offload photos.

But I wonder, why it is still so unreasonably outdated on Mac? So many steps…

I mean, isn’t it supposed to be more seamless and streamlined and part of ecosystem? If Apple treats iPhone as a modern camera, it should at least be able to connect and copy photos in one or two clicks.

And when I say “photos” I mean making backups of large libraries that are 16GB+. Obviously, it needs hard work: manual sorting, clearing and so on. While you cannot currently skip these steps, it would have been good if Apple’s Files app worked same way when connected to Mac, so it would have been possible to drag-and-drop photos in an instant. Maybe something like iPhone mirroring but wired for best transfer speeds.

Cloud is not an option for this same reason: it is very slow compared even to ancient USB 2.0 that Apple still packs with all low-tier iPhones (and even Air!!).

Comparing to Android it is a night and day experience. Android treats filesystem differently and so when you create a collection it would automatically treat it as folder throughout whole filesystem, not just Photos application, so when you manually sort out photos into collections your only job is to copy “DCIM” to computer and that’s it, unfortunately Macs poorly communicate with Android phones and rarely treat them as usual plug-and-play devices.

Currently it seems like Photos>Files>App Folder>Finder (Mac) is the best way. But maybe I am wrong and overcomplicating all of this, and that’s not Apple’s fault? After all we all do make mistakes.

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

Try a thunderbolt bridge with a thunderbolt 5 cable. Very fast. Your mileage may vary.

 

[GioGiusi]

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.

 

[Donkey Man]

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.

Not everyone wants to pay a subscription for life or be dependent on individual companies for hosting their content - how difficult is that to understand? What's with all the unconditional apologists here?

Again: transferring thousands of photos from iPhone to the Mac SHOULD (and used to) be perfectly reliable, either with Photos or Image Capture - but it hasn't been for years now - it is SLOW, it is prone to interruptions, it is never clearly indicating what is downloaded or not, it doesn't remove duplicates. And these have NOTHING to do with battery, network or even iCloud activation.

 

[tonmischa]

What's with all the unconditional apologists here?

Seriously? Are you for real?

OP is asking a simple, albeit slightly biased, question. People try to help by answering.
But OP is not taking any advice, but is arguing against each and every answer that tries to help him.
Then you come in. Huffing and puffing. Attacking me and others while all we did was trying to help and give advice by sharing our own personal experiences.

Did I design this process? No.
Did I implement this process? No.
Am I in the position to change this process? No
Am I personally happy with this process? AGAIN: NO.
But that does not matter to you. You still make me the bad guy.

What is your goal? Is this a forum where people try to help each other or are you just here to pass your frustration and anger on to others?
Take your angry faces and think long and hard about what you did here today.
Welcome to my blocklist. I hope you feel better now.

 

[uacd]

Seriously? Are you for real?

OP is asking a simple, albeit slightly biased, question. People try to help by answering.
But OP is not taking any advice, but is arguing against each and every answer that tries to help him.
Then you come in. Huffing and puffing. Attacking me and others while all we did was trying to help and give advice by sharing our own personal experiences.

Did I design this process? No.
Did I implement this process? No.
Am I in the position to change this process? No
Am I personally happy with this process? AGAIN: NO.
But that does not matter to you. You still make me the bad guy.

What is your goal? Is this a forum where people try to help each other or are you just here to pass your frustration and anger on to others?
Take your angry faces and think long and hard about what you did here today.
Welcome to my blocklist. I hope you feel better now.

I am sorry for bringing these misunderstandings.

Actually I am not trolling or anything but it was more of a rant/disappointment post. I mean, it is almost 20 years since the first iPhone but the process of photo syncing has not changed at all.

Many people out there are saying they are fine with iCloud sync and I mean that’s totally great, unfortunately not for me - not arguing just pointing out that it won’t work for my needs.

Many would argue and say process is same as DSLR but with one big difference: on iPhone there is a lot of stuff that needs manual sorting out, unfortunately Apple Intelligence is not there to do that for me, and I believe this process still needs human eye.

Post was kind of amalgamation of frustrations and thus felt a bit “bloated” but my main frustration is with Files app and that macOS still does not treat it as “just another Finder window”, it treats iPhone as a “slave” device and thus doesn’t allow filesystem access at the same level as iPhone itself allows via Files app, and this is kind of inconsistent, that’s sad.

I would expect them to add similar functionality in next macOS iterations though. There is iPhone mirroring mode after all that allows drag and drop, that would totally make sense to have that mode wired too, or at least similar menu in Finder for file/photo transfer

 

[stephenschimpf]

Surely for a few extra quid every month you could leave them all in Photos and view them wherever and wherever you choose, on either device, the web etc etc. Find them easily using Photos Search on dates, names, objects, places, titles, keywords.

Bingo. It works beautifully for me, although I understand that may not be the case for others, for one reason or another.

My dental hygienist and I are always talking about the trips I take and I show her lots of photos, and she once asked me "how can you have so many photos on your phone?" I said I just keep them all in Photos and can access them from all my devices, the full-size images are stored in iCloud and on my iMac. She asked "doesn't that cost money?" I said sure, and her reply was "oh, I don't want to have to pay for that."

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.

 

[uacd]

I have not been able to transfer photos from my iPhone to my admittedly old iMac on Monterey ever since updating to iOS 26. I used to be able to open Photos on my Mac, plug my phone in and then new photos would appear and I could choose which to import. Now it shows old photos as new and doesn't see my latest pics. I have to use image capture to transfer my photos and it is rightly annoying. I am wondering if my iMac is too old to work as before.

This seems more like a specific system bug, probably with new Photos app version.

UPD: probably related to misalignment of iOS and macOS version, this pisses me off ever since the first iPhone, that I have to expect bugs with versions of macOS that are slightly older than the ones installed on my phone. I don’t understand why Apple still has nothing like “compatibility mode” like on Windows

 

[Abydos]

This seems more like a specific system bug, probably with new Photos app version.

UPD: probably related to misalignment of iOS and macOS version, this pisses me off ever since the first iPhone, that I have to expect bugs with versions of macOS that are slightly older than the ones installed on my phone. I don’t understand why Apple still has nothing like “compatibility mode” like on Windows

probably because apple has been historically a hardware firm, by the way I mostly use sd cards to transfer photos to the Mac - seems to be a simple disk to disk copy, as for iPhone photos mostly non archival photos of boxes containing products which I need to determine if they fit my needs

 

[AlaskaMoose]

Two things strike me as curious in your workflow.
You shoot in RAW but you never edit the RAW file.
You create a TIFF as your primary file.

I was always under the impression that a RAW file was desirable only if you wish to change the cameras settings at the point of exposure in the edit. They’re huge files which allow for great manipulation.
If you never edit the RAW then why use it at all? You could save hundreds on hard drives by getting your camera just to shoot in TIFF

TIFF is a big lossless file, favoured by photographers who are in publishing and need to print media at great quality. If that’s your thing great. If you’re like me and know that iPad is the ideal viewing platform, again you could save yourself tens of dollars in hard drive space shooting in jpeg.

Just curious is all.

Well, I sometimes reduce digital noise from some of the RAW images, but that's about it. Then I edit or process this RAW image without altering the original RAW image using DXO Photo Lab. This image is not longer the original CR3 RAW image but a layer of it in Tiff format (it can also be, if I choose to do so, a DNG image that I can use for further editing). The final product is a very large Tiff image that I can go to archival (storage), and also one I can print at home, donate for others to print, and so on.

Another example, the Nik Software Bundle is fully integrated with DXO Photo Lab, and when using any of the Nik effects I always set these apps to only alter or edit a layer (a copy?) of the first Tiff image. In this case I can alter any of the copies of the first Tiff image, leaving the original Tiff untouched. If I exhaust all all the effects possible of the original Tiff image, I can then return to the original unaltered RAW image and go though another editing process, over and over...unless I make a mistake an alter the original RAW.

I Shoot RAW almost always, and occasionally in camera setting to RAW/JPG or maybe jpg alone in cases where I am giving the photos away. In some cases people have no idea nor are interested in editing, just printing the average jpg of gif photo.

I find the iPad quite boring compared to my MacBook and Studio. The iPad I bought last year is much of a paper weight cp;;eating dust on my desk. I do charge it once a month to keep the battery in good shape. My wife too9 has an iPad; she says that she likes it, but 99.9 of the time she uses her MacBook while her iPad collects dust around the house

Nothing is uploaded to iCloud from the iPhones, iPads, and Macs in my household. And while my music (songs) I purchase from the Music Stored are stored there, I have downloaded all the songs, and exported the entire library (ies) and saved them to external HD/SSDs.

 

[GioGiusi]

Not everyone wants to pay a subscription for life or be dependent on individual companies for hosting their content - how difficult is that to understand? What's with all the unconditional apologists here?

Again: transferring thousands of photos from iPhone to the Mac SHOULD (and used to) be perfectly reliable, either with Photos or Image Capture - but it hasn't been for years now - it is SLOW, it is prone to interruptions, it is never clearly indicating what is downloaded or not, it doesn't remove duplicates. And these have NOTHING to do with battery, network or even iCloud activation.

Because that isn't a priority. The priority is iCloud, which yes costs money, but its a tiny amount compared to the value received. And for anyone who has ever lost irreplaceable photos and videos, an offsite cloud backup is the minimum acceptable configuration.

 

[grammatica]

I use AirDrop or iCloud Photo Library.

 

[ForkHandles]

Well, I sometimes reduce digital noise from some of the RAW images, but that's about it. Then I edit or process this RAW image without altering the original RAW image using DXO Photo Lab. This image is not longer the original CR3 RAW image but a layer of it in Tiff format (it can also be, if I choose to do so, a DNG image that I can use for further editing). The final product is a very large Tiff image that I can go to archival (storage), and also one I can print at home, donate for others to print, and so on.

Another example, the Nik Software Bundle is fully integrated with DXO Photo Lab, and when using any of the Nik effects I always set these apps to only alter or edit a layer (a copy?) of the first Tiff image. In this case I can alter any of the copies of the first Tiff image, leaving the original Tiff untouched. If I exhaust all all the effects possible of the original Tiff image, I can then return to the original unaltered RAW image and go though another editing process, over and over...unless I make a mistake an alter the original RAW.

I Shoot RAW almost always, and occasionally in camera setting to RAW/JPG or maybe jpg alone in cases where I am giving the photos away. In some cases people have no idea nor are interested in editing, just printing the average jpg of gif photo.

I find the iPad quite boring compared to my MacBook and Studio. The iPad I bought last year is much of a paper weight cp;;eating dust on my desk. I do charge it once a month to keep the battery in good shape. My wife too9 has an iPad; she says that she likes it, but 99.9 of the time she uses her MacBook while her iPad collects dust around the house

Nothing is uploaded to iCloud from the iPhones, iPads, and Macs in my household. And while my music (songs) I purchase from the Music Stored are stored there, I have downloaded all the songs, and exported the entire library (ies) and saved them to external HD/SSDs.

For me iPad is a content consumption device, pictures, movies, music. I can easily understand it becoming a paper weight if you’re not storing interesting content on it.

 

[JamesMay82]

Alternatively use icloud
Imagine a photo

• It appears everywhere
• You edit it anywhere
• It updates everywhere

The time saving alone negates the subscription price, let alone all that storage you are using.

You missed if you accidentally delete then it deletes everywhere.

I agree that air drop is flakey so I usually just connect with a cable and import via photos app and have never had an issue.

iCloud is convenient but it’s not a back up. If you get locked out your account it’s all gone!

I’d bet majority of peeps don’t even have a back up and blindly think iCloud backs them up

 

[AlaskaMoose]

For me iPad is a content consumption device, pictures, movies, music. I can easily understand it becoming a paper weight if you’re not storing interesting content on it.

I can understand what the iPad is to you, but see...to me the iPad is just another device that is similar to the iPhone, except that it has a larger screen and a keyboard attached to it (Logitech).

I don't watch movies on it, don't look at pictures, listen to music, and so on. I use this iPad now and then when I don't want to move my MacBook from the table or desk where it sits on, but just to check the local weather forecast, or maybe the NOAA or the local University's Auroral Forecast. I watch moves in a large screen that is controlled by a powerful receiver and speakers, all while sitting in mu comfortable couch potato chair.

I do have a 4-5 eBooks (user manuals) for a cou7ple of cameras, and three for metal detectors. If I take this iPad on one of my usually very long drives in the Interior of Alaska like I do during the summer, then I can brush-up on some of the settings and features of the cameras I may have forgotten. Even the iPhone is sort of boring to me, but at least I can put it in my pocket and use it along the way to make calls while connected to the truck's display, things like that...

 

[AlaskaMoose]

You missed if you accidentally delete then it deletes everywhere.

I agree that air drop is flakey so I usually just connect with a cable and import via photos app and have never had an issue.

iCloud is convenient but it’s not a back up. If you get locked out your account it’s all gone!

I’d bet majority of peeps don’t even have a back up and blindly think iCloud backs them up

That can happen to one's music files at the Tune's store. There are several posts in these forums about such things happening to people. Just a few days ago I accidentally deleted an entire photo library at had at SmugMug, but I had backups of all my "saved for web" photos at home, so it took me a few minutes to upload them to SmugMug.

The bottomline about iCloud, or any other "cloud" or "drive", and so on is as follows: it is nothing but a business. Apple and other cloud services aren't having such "services" free ("for free" like most people say?). I just don't get trapped in the Apple iCloud business or whatever it's called, simply because I don't have use for it.

 

[CyberDavis]

For me iCloud provides easy faultless syncing between iPhpne-iPad-Mac.
The only complaint I have is that not every app or website on Mac seems to allow access to Photos app to import or use photos, sometimes I need to export an image before I can use it elsewhere.

 

[Danorak81]

Just to add my (probably unnecessary opinion!), I don't have an issue with the way it's handled. I shoot mainly on my iPhone, but if using my SLR, I just plug either device in to my Mac to import my images. I either create, or add folders as I go along so images are going where I want them to from the start. I like the fact there isn't significant organisation as I can then organise how I want. My library has been moved and transferred right back from the days of my G4 iBook. There have been a few hiccups along the way, but nothing insurmountable.

If i need a quick image share with my Mac, I just AirDrop, and that's not been an issue for a long time now (was problematic early days though). Exporting to Desktop hasn't been an issue either if my goal is then to upload to files. I'd rather upload to files from the desktop than from within an app. I do wish Files was easier to organise on the iPhone though-doesn't ever seem to marry up with how it is on the iCloud browser or locally on my Mac.

The only time I use iCloud for Photos is for a handful of shared albums, or, if I'm going away for a few days. I turn it on then so if the worst happened and I was separated from my iPhone, any pictures I've taken would still be accessible. My photo library is (mostly!) too precious to rely on Cloud storage: i'd rather have a local copy of those, with a local backup too.

 

[JamesMay82]

That can happen to one's music files at the Tune's store. There are several posts in these forums about such things happening to people. Just a few days ago I accidentally deleted an entire photo library at had at SmugMug, but I had backups of all my "saved for web" photos at home, so it took me a few minutes to upload them to SmugMug.

Correct! I only heard about this when my sister did it and she lost about 5 years of her daughter's photos when she forgot her password and got locked out of the iCloud account. to be fair it didn't enter my head that it could happen.

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.

 

[JoeSilver]

You missed if you accidentally delete then it deletes everywhere.

Yes, but you still have 30 days to recover it from the Deleted if you accidentally delete something.

iCloud is convenient but it’s not a back up. If you get locked out your account it’s all gone!

There are multiple ways of regaining access to your account, if you forget or lose your password. Of course, someone will conjure up the possible scenario where Apple collaborates with a bad government to lock you out. And there's always the possibility that in a catastrophic event all the Apple cloud storage facilities fail, or an hacker gain access to your stuff and delete it.

In my own experience of 3 decades dealing with computers, I have only lost data due to failing hard drives or SSDs.
Never because of a cloud failure or because I got locked out.

Back in the days I used to back up on CDs and DVDs but there are problems due to their storage limitations and the fact that you cannot do incremental backups. With external drives you can, but you must still aware that they are prone to failure.

I do have a drive which I use for backup, but I found out that using it across platforms (in my case Linux and Mac) is quite complicated, especially if you want to encrypt your data as well.

Therefore, local backup is not that simple solution either.

I’d bet majority of peeps don’t even have a back up and blindly think iCloud backs them up

I don't know what is a peep but if you are serious about backups you should know that redundancy is key.

 

[adrianlondon]

You missed if you accidentally delete then it deletes everywhere.

They go into the Recently Deleted folder for around a month. Of course, if you don't notice for longer than that, then they're gone.

I agree that air drop is flakey so I usually just connect with a cable and import via photos app and have never had an issue.

I've never used Airdrop as I've not found a use for it yet. Maybe one day ...

iCloud is convenient but it’s not a back up. If you get locked out your account it’s all gone!

Very true. iCloud is a synchronisation service not a backup one. I export all my photos to my laptop and back them up to multiple places.

I’d bet majority of peeps don’t even have a back up and blindly think iCloud backs them up

Agreed. However, I've not personally heard of anyone losing their photos, so it should be ok (until it isn't!).

 

[ForkHandles]

You missed if you accidentally delete then it deletes everywhere.

I agree that air drop is flakey so I usually just connect with a cable and import via photos app and have never had an issue.

iCloud is convenient but it’s not a back up. If you get locked out your account it’s all gone!

I’d bet majority of peeps don’t even have a back up and blindly think iCloud backs them up

In some sense iCloud is a back up. The originals in my use case are stored on the Mac.
I cod deleted photos are accessible for 30 days.

 

[Fallforward]

Applications --> Image capture
Select photos from connected iPhone.
Click Import.
Not complicated at all.

EDIT:
But it seems you are talking about "TRANSFER" when you basically mean "ORGANIZE".

Here is how I am doing it since my iPhone 4S.
I use the Mac Photos App.
All photos I take are imported directly into the Photos App, then deleted from iPhone (Can be done during Import)
Then I sort, edit, delete.
Then I sync the Photos library (the parts I want/need) back to iPhone.
No iCloud needed. Huge Master Photo library on my Mac gets backupped locally.
Works great for me.

Occasionally I too want to keep few on my phone and upload. So, I select them to upload first with the delete-on-iphone option turned off and after that upload the remainder with delete-on-iphone turned on. Next time the app knows not to try to upload previous "don't delete on upload" photos.

Is there a reason why you use the circuitous up-and-back approach? Are they better organized on your iPhone?