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

[Jeeve Stubbs]

Why is it so hard? Because Apple wants you to use iCloud instead, and the company tends to think it knows better than its customers.

 

[ForkHandles]

I’ve also had problems getting my photos from iCloud to an external HD. It’s extremely slow for no discernible reason. The copies take so much longer than a normal file copy would take. It seems faster on iOS but it’s unreasonable to expect me to use iOS for that and I’m not sure if iOS would support my external hard drive

If you have originals downloaded onto your Mac it’s not too bad depending on the option selected.

Transfer Originals - pretty quick

Transfer edited - I have a feeling that Photos files are a bit more complex than a standard jpeg as they contain the edit history. Each file possibly needs processing before export. This is much slower

If the originals don’t exist on the Mac then each has an extra layer of downloading first. Mind numbing slow

Again Mac has a work around for this called Time Machine.

The only problem is is that most photographers grew up storing their collections in a gargantuan file tree with years at the top level, months, event names and they just can’t let go of this cumbersome and antiquated system. So Time Machine won’t suit many

 

[maxoakland]

If you have originals downloaded onto your Mac it’s not too bad depending on the option selected.

Transfer Originals - pretty quick

Transfer edited - I have a feeling that Photos files are a bit more complex than a standard jpeg as they contain the edit history. Each file possibly needs processing before export. This is much slower

Very few of my photos have been edited so this can’t be the issue

If the originals don’t exist on the Mac then each has an extra layer of downloading first. Mind numbing slow

It’s extremely slow but it shouldn’t be. There seems to be something wrong here

 

[decafjava]

Snow! Nice. There are some places around here with snow - friends who live in such (boring, out of the way) places are making me jealous. It's just cold and grey here 😁

Well that didn't last, snow never stays in Geneva at least over the last few years. also cold and grey today while it was sunny and cold yesterday. Still nice view of snow in the mountains - both the Jura and Alps so will snap a few pics. Where are you located?

Sorry for the OT but am planning to upload a few more photos to try to see if this was a fluke.