Get your photos on to your Mac
Explore a range of techniques to transfer photos and video clips from camera to computer
THANKS TO YOUR ever–present iPhone you can capture a photograph wherever and whenever you like. However, this creates the problem of managing an ever–growing collection of clips and images. On these two pages, we cover a range of methods to help you store your shots safely.
SYNC YOUR ASSETS
The easiest way to get photos off your iPhone and safely on to your Mac is to use iCloud Photos. Do this across all your devices and, as soon as you’re in range of a Wi–Fi connection, your latest iPhone stills and clips will automatically upload to iCloud Photos. Then as soon as you fire your Mac up at home, these assets will download into its Photos app so that you can edit and share them from the comfort of your desktop. Your photos will also automatically appear in the Photos app on other Wi–Fi connected gadgets such as your iPad, so you can relax in the knowledge that all your photos are in sync on every device. You can even view and organize your synced photos and videos by logging into iCloud Photos using any computer’s web browser.
Here’s how to set up your iPhone to automatically share to the iCloud. You’ll need an iCloud account, of course, and that comes with a free 5GB of storage. However prolific photographers will soon need more storage space so it’s worth upgrading to iCloud+. For $0.99 per month you get 50GB of storage. Pro photographers shooting in Apple ProRAW (or capturing 4K video clips) may need to pay a monthly $9.99 for an enormous 2TB of iCloud storage space.
To set up iCloud syncing, go to iPhone’s Settings, tap the Photos app’s icon, then scroll down and tap to toggle iCloud Photos on. Your captures will then automatically be uploaded to your iCloud account (and synced with your other devices). To save storage space on your iPhone, turn on Optimize iPhone Storage in Settings > Photos. When the iPhone becomes low on storage space, full–sized shots will be replaced by low–res versions. The original high–res versions will be stored safely in iCloud Photos, so if you then need to edit and/or share a shot on your iPhone or Mac, the full–sized version will be downloaded to the device.
Uploading clips and stills to iCloud could devour your iPhone’s cellular data allowance. Go to Settings > Photos and tap Cellular Data. Turn Cellular Data off. Now your iPhone will only upload shots to iCloud when it’s connected to Wi–Fi.
To make sure your Mac is also talking to iCloud, launch the macOS Photos app. Go to Photos > Preferences. Click the iCloud icon. Check the iCloud Photos box to keep your devices’ Photos apps in sync.
As on your iPhone, you can save valuable space on your Mac by clicking the Optimize Mac Storage option. This stores low–res images on your Mac. The full–size photo or video will automatically download when you click the Edit button in the Photos app.
WITH iCLOUD PHOTOS, YOU CAN EDIT AND SHARE YOUR iPHONE IMAGES FROM YOUR MAC