How can I import photos from my iPhone to my iMac?

Good point. Here's what I'm doing:

On the first link above…

Transfer photos and videos from your iPhone or iPad to your Mac or PC - Apple Support

… I followed the instructions under Import to your Mac. I have been doing this for years, and it always worked before. I get this far:

1. Connect your iPhone or iPad to your Mac with a USB cable.
2. If you see a prompt to allow your accessory to connect to your computer, click Allow.
3. Open the Photos app on your computer.
4. The Photos app shows an Import screen with all the photos and videos that are on your connected device. If the Import screen doesn't automatically appear, click the device's name in the Photos sidebar.
5. If asked, unlock your iPhone or iPad using your passcode. If a prompt appears on your iPhone or iPad asking you to Trust This Computer, tap Trust to continue.
6. …

(The one difference is that I connect using wireless. But that used to work fine. My iPhone's lightning port has worn out.)

In step 4, I don't see the import screen. I still follow step 5, because a prompt appears on my phone, and I enter my passcode. But that still doesn't bring up the Import screen, and my iPhone no longer shows up in the sidebar of Photos, even though it appears in my Finder and in Apple Music. So it probably thinks I'm using iCloud, but I'm not. This is why I suspect it's something in my settings, either on my iPhone or my iMac.

I see what you mean. Image Capture is the Mac app I use when I use my printer/scanner on my iMac. I've never tried this on my phone. I'm trying to import the photos on my phone to my iMac.

(When I use Image Capture on my Mac, everything works fine.)

"It would be more useful if you told us exactly what did happen when, for instance, you used the app Image Capture"

Apologies for the delay in responding. Somehow the problem got worse. I could no longer see my iPhone in the Finder when I connected. That new problem went away when I upgraded both my iPhone and my iMac to their latest OS. Now I back to the original problem, which is that when I connect to the iPhone to my network, it shows up in the Finder but not in Photos or ImageCapture.

Thank you for the suggestion. I tried that. I moved both the com.apple.imagecapture.plist and the newer com.apple.Image_Capture.plist to the desktop. Then I logged out and logged back in, but nothing changed, in either Image Capture or Photos.

I will mention that my Image Capture had nothing on the tool bar. It wasn't until I right-clicked on the title bar that I found the "Customize Toolbar…" menu. I added all the icons I see in your diagram, but when I click on the (…) menu, nothing happens. The button highlights when I roll over it, and highlights brighter when I click it. But no menu pops up.

The ~/Library/Preferences folder has a new file called com.apple.Image_Capture.plist.

Here's what I see:

[Edited by Moderator]

I was unable to start my Mac in safe mode. My Mac has another problem. My internal hard drive crashed, so I'm running from an external drive. Unfortunately, this makes restarting my Mac very hard. I need to dismount my internal drive before restarting, then it fails to start, so I go into recovery mode and dismount the internal drive again, before restarting. When I tried to go into safe mode, it just went into a loop giving me the progress bar over and over again.

Can't you go into the System ➙ Startup Disk and select your external drive as the startup drive?

I've done that. That's the only option when I go to System ➙ Startup Disk. It still doesn't start up. I think it's because it remounts the internal drive every time I start up.

…if you have a wireless keyboard with rechargeable batteries connect it with its charging cable before booting into Safe Mode.

Thank you for that suggestion. I already do that. I keep my keyboard permanently plugged into my iMac.

> Re-start in Safe Mode.

I restarted in safe mode. It still didn't show the iPhone in Photos, even though I could see the iPhone in a finder window. So it didn't behave any differently.

I also tried with a new account in Safe Mode. There, I never even saw my iPhone in the finder window or in Photos.

"Tip: If you want Photos to open whenever you connect this device, select the Open Photos tick box".

Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately that check box only appears when I select my iPhone in the sidebar. But my phone doesn't even appear in the sidebar. That's the problem I'm trying to solve here.

I don't see any way to do that. Image Capture doesn't see my iPhone, just like iPhoto doesn't see it. It says Devices: 0, Shared: 0

I guess I can change the question to this: When my iPhone is connected to the same network as my iMac, it appears in the Finder, but why doesn't it appear in Photos or Image Capture?

"Connect your iPhone to your Mac with its charging cable."

I can't connect using my charging cable. My lightning port is worn out. But this used to work fine without it.