iPhone Photos Transfer to Photos app on MacBook
Greetings All
I always hate to be the guy who posts a new message when there are 30 other threads for the same solved issue, but in this case, I came up short trying to find an answer. I recently updated my phone OS to 26 and it would not turn back on. That issue is resolved but I was struck by the notion that I have about 18,000 pictures on that phone and I have never backed it up. Also, I do not have Upload to iCloud Photos enabled because I'm too cheap and prefer having a backup in my hands.
I've been trying to figure out how to get the photos copied to my mac. I already have 20,000 photos on the mac from previous phones, so I know it's possible. And note, those photos on the mac are not on the phone, so it's not something like, I have photos on the phone and they are not showing up in the import screen because have already been imported. In the past, I would just plug the phone in and import the photos to the Photos app. The issue I am having right now is that every time I plug the phone in to the mac, it gives me a different amount of photos it recognizes to import. I'll plug the phone in, 400 images are ready to be imported. I'll unplug it and plug it back in, and now it sees 4,000 pictures. It changes every time but the one thing it never does is find all 18,000 pictures. And no, those same pictures are not already on the mac. I have not tried to "backup" photos from my phone to the mac in years. I can take a picture, plug in the phone to the mac, and it does not see that picture and instead returns some new random set of pictures to import. Also, the same set is shown in Photos or Image Capture. It's pretty frustrating that I cannot just open the folder on the phone through a file browser and get to the pictures that way, though I guess that would create problems with the new pictures not nicely merged in the Photos app container with the other 20k.
The only thing I've found on the internet is to try different cables, and specifically use the one that originally came with the phone. I've done the former with more than a dozen cables and have near zero chance of ever finding the OEM cable. I have a little hard time believing that the cable will solve this but would gladly be proven wrong if someone knows that the cable is the culprit.
iPhone 14 Pro Max running iOS 26.1
MB running MacOS Monterey
Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.
