Sequoia Photos won't import from iPhone

I am having the same problem. I don't use iCloud photos - I have about 100,000 photos and videos on my iPhone, and I use a USB cable to connect my iPhone to my M1 MacBook Pro to download photos through the Photos app. It has worked for years until some issues with iOS 17 & Sonoma, which were fixed earlier this year, and now it has again stopped working with iOS 18.0.1 and Sequoia 15.1.1. My Photos library is on my main internal SSD in my laptop. Similar to the OP, when I select the iPhone in the left panel of Photos, the new photos are identified (now coming up as grey boxes instead of thumbnails), and after clicking Import All New, the progress bar sits at 0 photos imported (of 6000 that I haven't been able to import).

If I use Image Capture, I get the same result - the progress bar sits at 0. Plus I then lose the ability to make sure all the photos and videos are pulled into Photos properly. Sometimes older photos are shared on iMessage or Email, so they don't necessarily show up in the list of images in the same place as other photos since the last export from the iPhone.

Help!

I have tried reboots of both the phone and laptop numerous times, sometimes together, sometimes one or the other, with no definitive pattern of success. Safe mode didn't provide any better luck. I may have found that if I disconnect all USB devices (I had an external SSD and sometimes an external hard drive attached) except the iPhone, and rebooted both the iPhone and laptop, I could start downloading pictures and videos to Photos through the Photos user interface. The download would stop at some point (hundreds, sometimes a thousand pictures in), at which point if I disconnected the iPhone, wait a few seconds, and reconnect the iPhone, I could continue the download until it stops again. I'm trying to remember if I had to close and reopen Photos - I don't believe I did. Took several rounds of this to download ~7000 pictures and videos.

I found the same pattern was required to download the same pictures and videos through the ImageCapture user interface. In that case, there were closer to 14,000 files to download, with live photos coming in as two files, and any image that had been edited coming in with an addition .AAE file with the edits. I did the download like this so I could import the files into Lightroom, which just couldn't even evaluate duplicates before hanging when trying to import directly from the iPhone. Again, didn't have this problem before the latest OS upgrades, now iOS 18.2 on my iPhone 15 Pro Max and Sequoia 15.1.1.

I have not tried using a new library, using a new user account, or rebuilding my Photos library. One other data point - my wife has an iPhone 15 Pro with iOS 18.1.1, and when I downloaded ~1300 photos and videos to Lightroom, it did so without a hiccup. I don't download her photos to my Photos, so I don't have that data point. Downloading to her Photos on a Monterey iMac didn't have any issues.

Aarthek wrote: … How do I backup my photos from my iPhone to Photos on my Mac?

The best and easiest way is through iCloud.

The other way to transfer pictures to the Mac is by plugging in a USB cable. (You didn't mention using USB-- is that what you do?) There are two and a half choices here:

• Use the Apple App Image Capture available in the Applications Folder. You can select places on the Mac to send the pictures, or you can send them to Photos. This seems best to me.
• You can click on the iPhone in the Sidebar, and that will open, I think, a rather confusing window. For me, if I click on Photos, it says

so I don't ever do this.

• If you when the USB cable is connected, check this:

Then it may sync wirelessly later when on the same wifi network. But again, I haven't done this with pictures. You can see this:

Sync content between your Mac and iPhone, iPad or iPod touch over Wi-Fi - Apple Support (SG)

Do you use the USB cable, or do you expect wireless syncs? You may have to plug in and check your settings.

Force a re-start on the iPhone

Force restart iPhone - Apple Support

Then try these things on your Mac to maybe narrow down the problem:

• Restart the computer (of course)
• Re-start in Safe Mode. This bypasses certain potentially disruptive processes, and it often helps. Safe Mode is different for different computers, so see this: 

           Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support 

Those are the easiest things to try first. Then try these:

• Use another library if you have one, or make a small test Library with a few pictures in it and see if the same thing happens. You can create a new Library by closing Photos and then option-clicking on the Photos icon.
• Make a new user and see if the same problem recurs with it
• Rebuild your Photos Library--close Photos and re-launch by option-command-clicking the app icon.

The idea is to find out if the problem is with the Library, with your account, or with caches and login items, and stuff like that. One of these steps may fix the problem, but their failure to work also helps figure out what's happening.

Let us know what happens…

I have been told by Apple that the problem with importing is a known problem that has been referred to their engineering staff. It happens not only with my iPhone but also with my iPad Pro. I have had this problem since early December 2024. Like you, I do not have the photos on my iMac on iiCloud. There is other info on this issue at Unable to import photos after IOS 18.1.1 … - Apple Community

If you haven't solved the problem yet give this a try:

1 - unplug you iPhone from the computer.

2 - reboot both your iPhone and computer.

3 - plug your iPhone into the computer with its USB charging cable.

4 - if this notification appears click on Install:

I get this notification the first time I plug in my iPhone after every update and upgrade.