Apple Photos cannot import some JPG files?

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Level 1

27 points

Apple Photos cannot import some JPG files?

I am trying to import a large number of .JPG files from my Mac into Apple Photos. In this large list of JPG files, some of them are showing grayed out and not importable into Apple Photos. All of these files are .JPG, they're all in the same folder, came from the same camera shot minutes apart, etc....so I have no idea why some can be imported and others can't.

Are there any tips for why this might be happening? A sample of the Mac's Apple Photos import dialog showing the grayed out JPG's is attached. I cannot select those grayed out files for import.

Thanks for any help...

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 13.2

Posted on Mar 27, 2023 04:44 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

JohnNY123 Author

Level 1

27 points

Mar 28, 2023 06:28 PM in response to jmarse1

Actually, this is seemingly a bug in the Photos app on the Mac (at least for me, anyway). I discovered today that if I click on those grayed out files, they turn black and are then available for importing. Then if I scroll down and see more gray ones in the list and I click on them, they turn black, etc....and thus making them all available for import. I don't know what that's all about, but it's a workaround that got me going for what I need to do, so no harm no foul except for the inconvenience of having to click to "activate" them.

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Answer 2

jmarse1

Community Specialist

Mar 28, 2023 02:50 PM in response to JohnNY123

Hi JohnNY123,

We will be glad to help you. If you're following the steps as outlined in Import photos from a camera or phone using Photos on Mac - Apple Support, and are still unable to import those photos; you'll need to reach out to Apple directly to look into this with you further: Get Support

Cheers.

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Answer 3

judysings

Community Specialist

Mar 28, 2023 06:42 PM in response to JohnNY123

Good afternoon JohnNY123,

Thanks for letting everyone in the community know that you were able to import all of the .jpeg photos from your camera into the MacBook Pro. What camera are you using to take and import the pictures? Have you tested with a different SD card on the same camera?

Take care.

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Answer 4

léonie

Level 10

199,927 points

Mar 28, 2023 08:24 PM in response to JohnNY123

Is your Mac syncing with iCloud and is "Optimize Mac Storage" enabled? Then the image files might be grayed out, if the files need downloading from iCloud. By clicking them you are forcing the download.

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Answer 5

JohnNY123 Author

Level 1

27 points

Mar 29, 2023 07:32 AM in response to léonie

Just to clarify what I'm actually doing. Yes my Mac is syncing with iCloud Photos, and Optimize Mac Storage is disabled. What I am doing is importing files from my Mac's internal SSD into Apple Photos, and Apple Photos is then syncing them up to iCloud as it should. I am not downloading anything from iCloud here....I'm going upward on an initial load. For some reason, when I open the Import dialog in Apple Photos and go to select the files to import from my Mac's SSD folders, the list of files is partially grayed out. I am able to work around this as I described above, but this seems to be a bug in Apple Photos of some kind.

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