In the past few years, smartphone cameras have went from being completely useless to a worthy weapon in a photographer’s arsenal. Cameras have improved, and now they are borderline imperative. Apple’s iPhone camera is now so good, that photographers that own an iPhone don’t need anything else.
Did you know that the majority of Flickr users snap photos with iPhones rather than the usual camera? At least, according to data pulled by Flickr.
Eventually, you’ll want those pictures onto your computer. It’s quite easy, and we’re here to help you out. Here are 5 easy ways on how to import pictures from iPhone to Mac.
1. Import pictures the traditional way
When I grew up with Apple, and it was just phenomenal to witness how much they achieved and where they are today. Pre Cloud, or sending photos to Facebook Messenger, or a dummy e-mail account, we had to transfer photos by bridging the iPhone and Mac. You can still do so with the latest iPhone. You just need an USB sync cable.
Actually, if you have newer models, just grab your Lightning cable and connect your iPhone to your Mac. If you have older models, you’ll have to use a 30 pin to USB cable.
The Photos app, by default, will open when it senses that an iPhone has connected. If it doesn’t, you can go ahead and manually open it. If you’re running on an older version of Mac OS X, the Photos app will be called iPhoto.
Now, you just have to click on Import, and when Import New Items comes up, click it too. That’s about it. The app will do everything, and you just have to sit back and watch how the magic happens. If you want to save up some space on your iPhone, be sure to check the Delete items after import box, just before you start the import process.
You can also select just a few photos, and click on Import Selected.
If you want more options, then I recommend going with the Mac’s home-grown Image Capture app. This allows you to save selected photos to a user-created folder, and also delete pics you don’t like.
Open Image Capture and select your smartphone from the list. The next step is to select the location where all the photos will be imported to. You can either import them all, or just a selection, your choice.
After the process is done, don’t forget to safely disconnect your smartphone from your Mac.
2. Email is still awesome
Back in the day when we didn’t have the awesome cloud at our disposal, we either used the old-fashioned way to transfer photos, or by the way of email. This, however, mostly works for a few photos here and there. You can’t transfer huge chunks of gigs using this method. Well, you can, but it’s tiresome, to say the least.
On the Photos app on your iPhone, you can go to any album or picture and use the Select button. It’s located in the top right of the screen. Pick whatever photos you want then select the Mail icon. Send yourself an email and check your Mac for the pictures.
3. Use AirDrop
AirDrop is a fantastic little app that lets users transfer not only photos, but files of all sizes and shapes between an iOS device and an OS X computer over a local network. In order to use AirDrop, both devices must be connected to the same Wi-Fi network – also, both devices need to have Bluetooth on.
AirDrop works only on machines that use either OS X Yosemite or newer, or iOS 8 or later.
Just go to your Photos app on your smartphone, go to any album, and select what photos you want to share. The Share screen will be displayed, afterwards check your AirDrop so you can start the transfer pics process. Choose your Mac of choice, and AirDrop will start sending all the data to the machine.
You’ll have to accept the transfer on your Mac so the process can start.
4. Cloud is king
There are a ton of options – Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Box and many others. You just save whatever photos you want into the cloud storage and then access it on your Mac. It’s easy as pie.
However, I do recommend going for the free ones like Dropbox and Google Drive at first. If a service pleases you, and you need more storage, grab a subscription. They’re not as expensive as you may think they are.
5. iCloud is queen
Still a cloud option, but iCloud is Apple-made. And we all know what that means – quality!
iCloud can help you keep your data synced across all of your devices, and thus it makes it the best way to import Pictures from iPhone to Mac. iCloud Photo Library keeps all of your photo libraries synced across all the devices – iOS/OS X; you own, if you choose to.
It also syncs every little bit of edit and change you make. Say, you edited and cropped a photo on your Mac, well, then that version will also be displayed on your iPhone.
iCloud storage gives away 5 gigs for free, but no more. For only $0.99 a month, you can get 50 gigs of storage. Need more? How about $9.99 monthly subscription for a TB?
Image Source: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5