Photos won't import from iPhone to Mac after Sonoma update.

I have been having the same issue—since upgrading to Sonoma on all 3 of my MACs (Studio, Mini and MacBook Pro), I can no longer import any pictures from my iPhone, nor can they be copied to the desktop and then dragged into Photos. This is so frustrating, and I can not seem to get an answer. This has been an issue for some time now, and there seems to be no update to rectify it.

I've tried all of that and it is still not working. This wasn't an issue before updating to Sonoma. Please advise further.

Im running photos application on my external ssd and it wont import photos from my iphone to my external ssd photos application. Im running mac os sonoma, This has to be the sorriest operating system i have ever used. How can something so simple thats been done for decades on crap computers cant even be done on my m2 macbook air.

[Edited by Moderator]

Thats fcking crazy, I have same problem, apple fix your apps please

I found the root cause of the issue. I run image capture and tried to import a set of 20 photos/videos and it did work for 4 and then stopped because the iPhone got disconnected and reconnected. It disconnected on a video, so I went back to the iPhone and removed that video (it was something someone sent over whatsapp), moved back to Photos and ta-dah! Everything is working fine now.

my guess is that there are some viseos and pictures with a bad encoding or some encoding that is somehow not being handled correctly during import which causes the iPhone to disconnect.

Apple is a snake...a ruthless, hungry, greedy company that has doesn't care about its users. Been like this for years now. Sometime I forget who they are for a while and buy another iPhone. But then I'm reminded of this fact as I fight to do simple tasks like importing my photos.

Apple. Do better. This is not rocket science. You had years to fix this really basic flaw. You

Same issue here... did you ever manage to fix this issue?

Yes, THIS!!!

I was so frustrated to see that imports are not working because of this. If you import all images not present in Photos, you should check the photos/videos which show up first on the iPhone side. Look for an exclamation point on the bottom right of the image and delete it (hopefully no important photos/videos). Then the import continues up to the next photo/video with issues. I had to import over 8000 files and was stopped during the import about 15 times to hunt for the corrupted photo/video... very annoying. Less annoying than not being able to import the files at all...

Have you tried, as a workaround, using Image Capture to download photos to a folder on the Desktop and import from there? Just connect the iPhone to your Mac with its USB cable and launch Image Capture.

alexsantisteban wrote: It seems that with the latest upgrades ExFat or other non-MacOS formats are not good.

This has always been the case. We users (and Apple) have been finding corruption of Photos Libraries for years that have been caused by using Photos Libraries from improperly formatted drives. Libraries may seem to be working fine for a long time until they are overwhelmed by degradation.

To avoid damaging the Photos Library an external drive must be formatted in either APFS format or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. Additionally, the drive can not have had Time Machine on it since it was formatted. There have been so many problems with using incompatible drives that the newest macOSs won't even allow a Library on a non-Mac formatted drive to open, since there is a chance of damaging the Photos database. See this:

Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support

NiFa18 wrote: ... I had to import over 8000 files and was stopped during the import about 15 times to hunt for the corrupted photo/video... very annoying. Less annoying than not being able to import the files at all...

Videos seem most often to be the culprit -- their codecs are just not as standardized as jpgs. Even videos that say ".mov" can have vastly different compatibilities. The Image Capture app certainly works better than Finder dealing with incompatible files. Probably the best plan would be to import pictures first, and then attempt the videos.

I think stuff downloaded from web sites would be the last to try...

Richard.Taylor wrote:

Videos seem most often to be the culprit -- their codecs are just not as standardized as jpgs. Even videos that say ".mov" can have vastly different compatibilities. The Image Capture app certainly works better than Finder dealing with incompatible files. Probably the best plan would be to import pictures first, and then attempt the videos.

I think stuff downloaded from web sites would be the last to try...

Yes, this seems to be the case. I just cannot fathom why it would stop importing each time it comes across a corrupted file. Very annoying to troubleshoot for an average user. I consider myself the "support guy" of the family and I took almost a week to figure it out. Including investing in a 10Gbit/s USB-C 3.2 something cable because I figured with an iPhone 15 Pro it would need it...

My first external photo library was created last may 2024 and it was in a SSD ExFat formatted. I tried to import some new picture and the same problem"preparing...." and nothing happened. I formatted a new USB disk to MacOS Extended Journaled, (Boot Sector option) copied my old photo library from the ExFat SSD to the new disk, opened Photo app while holding down the option key, selected the new photo library and imported all the pictures without a glitch. It seems that with the latest upgrades ExFat or other non-MacOS formats are not good. Hope it helps!

my new $1000 macbook air won't do something as simple as import photos from my iPhone.

I had to call tech support and he didn't have any advice. he was completely stumped.

I have used Apple products for 20-25 years. But they have lost me as a customer since I bought this laptop a month ago.

There was a time I could count on Apple for reliable, simple, intuitive software and UI. Everything worked almost flawlessly from day one, with rare exceptions.

There was a time it was worth paying a premium for Apple, but that time is gone.

I am returning this laptop to Costco.

I didn't see it mentioned, but I've found that even having a drive CONNECTED that is formatted in ExFAT will not allow you to import your photos from an iPhone. I was having the same issue and my external photos library was indeed formatted in ExFAT. However even trying to import into a photo library where it normally is on the internal drive (the system photo library) I could still not import when the drive was connected. Disconnected the drive and the photos imported without issue.