> Syncing Photos isn’t working
When I transfer new photos from my iPhone to my Mac, Photos always loads all the photos, then transfers many of them as duplicates of those already on my Mac. How can I get my iPhone to transfer only the newest batch of photos?
Provided that you haven’t got iCloud Photos turned on, selecting your syncing iPhone in the Finder’s Locations should provide access to options for Photos. There, choose to sync all photos and albums, and select a time period to include photos.
There’s one hidden feature which can cause problems, though: if you delete an automatically synced photo on your Mac, it’s also removed from your iPhone when you next sync it.
Unless you need to sync your iPhone regularly for other reasons, it’s much easier to sync photos using iCloud, and if you’re careful as to how you do that, it needn’t eat into your iCloud storage either. There are three different schemes on offer: iCloud Photos, My Photo Stream and Shared Albums.
iCloud Photos syncs all photos on your Mac and all devices, as explained in bit.ly/mac371icloudphotos. However, that will eat into your iCloud storage allocation, so would be costly for larger Photos libraries. My Photo Stream, doesn’t count against that limit but only keeps photos for 30 days, see: bit.ly/mac371photostream. However, it isn’t actually available with some more recent Apple IDs. Shared Albums are intended for use with other people, and are explained in bit. ly/mac371sharedalbums. You’ll find the system limits imposed on My Photo Stream and Shared Albums detailed at bit.ly/mac371photolimits.