how to move many voice memos from iOS 12 to imac

What didn't work? Are you using the same iCloud account on your iPhone and your Mac? Have you turned on Voice Memos in iCloud on each device. Tell us what you tried and where it failed.

The other suggestion I have is buy Phoneview (https://www.ecamm.com/mac/phoneview/) and move any info you want from your iPhone to your Mac.

Hello and welcome to Apple Support Communities, stevie_p!

I understand you want to move your Voice Memos over to your iMac. I'd be happy to provide information to help you accomplish this.

Use the steps in the following article: See your voice memos on all your devices

Have a great day!

Aren't they synced as a playlist in iTunes/Finder if they are stored locally? If it doesn't work, the only thing that will definitely work are Phoneview as suggested or iMazing (both are good, but I use the last one :) ), just select the folder on external drive as the export location and that's it. Just make sure that memos are loaded locally and verify them after export.

Regarding your questions:

• Voice memos are included in the backup, so they'll be on iPhone 11 after you restore the backup from 6, even if it's on iOS 12;
• Note that if you use iCloud sync for Voice Memos, they are not included in the iCloud backup (as they are already synced to the cloud);
• Can't say what happens when you make a local backup when voice memos are not saved locally (while saved on the cloud before loading), but they should re-sync from cloud on the new device.