Importing Footage from iPhone onto SSD Thumb Drive Drive instead of Portable SSD.

Question

Level 1

5 points

Importing Footage from iPhone onto SSD Thumb Drive Drive instead of Portable SSD.

Hello Everyone. Hope You All are Well. I am a Travel Vlogger. I use FCP. I use my iPhone 14 Pro Max for my videos (1920 X 1080 60p). I was using Image Capture and Photos on my MacBook Pro M1 Max, but both have been unreliable. Air Drop also does not work well. I found the most reliable method to transfer videos/photos from my iPhone was to use the Files app on the iPhone, and transfer the videos/photos to a SanDisk SSD Thumb Drive, which I can later transfer to an external hard drive. Sometimes there are issues (like with permissions), but mostly it is reliable.

I also have a SanDisk Portable SSD. Does it make a difference whether I use the Thumb Drive or Portable SSD to save the videos/photos (both are SanDisk and SSDs)? I prefer the thumb drives. I do not want to lose quality.

I understand it’s not a good idea to edit right off the thumb drives, though, and the Portable SSD is better for that particular purpose.

I would appreciate any assistance.

Thank You.

Posted on Dec 7, 2025 3:58 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Dec 7, 2025 7:38 AM in response to pjanveja

Either way, it should work.

I would reserve these drives for use with the mac, and make sure they are formatted as APFS.

Other than that, it should not matter whether you transfer via a (reasonably fast) thumb drive or ssd - though in generally the ssd will be much faster.

For editing, an external ssd is best.

Make sure that any drives you use are properly formatted for the mac. Use MacOS Extended for rotating hard drives, APFS for the rest.

Reply

Answer 2

Dec 7, 2025 8:29 AM in response to pjanveja

My thumb drives are all incredibly slow (writing) compared with a normal HDD or SSD and I wouldn't dream of using them unless it was an emergency where time didn't matter.

Reply