How to Transfer Photos from iPhone to Mac

Got some great pics on your iPhone and want to transfer them to your Mac, so you can view them on the big screen or seriously edit them in iPhoto or Photoshop? If so, you’re in the right place. Below we provide two separate (yet unequal) ways to transfer photos from iPhone (includes iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4,and iPhone 4S) to Mac—so you can quickly and easily back up photos, recover photos lost or deleted from your Mac, and more. (Snow Leopard, Lion included).

Choose Your Solution:

Transfer iPhone camera roll photos using iPhoto and Preview: Basically, iPhoto and Preview let you import your camera roll—i.e., all the saved photos you’ve shot recently with your iPhone (and only your iPhone) to your Mac. ( Detailed info: Solution 1)
Transfer all photos on your iPhone no matter where they’re from with SyncPod. In addition to image files, SyncPod seamless transfers audio and video to and from your iPhone. ( Detailed info: Solution 2)

Solution 1: "Camera Roll" photos to Mac with iPhoto/Preview (Photos Taken with iPhone)

Note: With iPhoto and Preview you can only sync photos from your iPhone camera roll—in other words, only photos taken by your iPhone. If you want to sync all your Photo Library images, go to Part 2.

Via iPhoto

1. Connect your iPhone to your Mac. iPhoto will automatically launch and open to the Import window, listing your iPhone's images and videos under "Camera Roll".

Photos from iPhone to Mac

2. Select the images you want to import into iPhoto, then select the "Import Selected" option—or just drag the photos directly from the Camera Roll folder into iPhoto.

Via Preview

You can also use Preview to transfer the photos in your iPhone Camera Roll:

1. Connect your iPhone to your Mac and launch your Preview, go to the File menu and choose "Import from (your iPhone's name)..."

iPhone photo to Mac

2. Select your photos and click "Import" or click "Import All", choose the destination.

transfer iPhone photo to Mac

Solution 2: Sync Photo Library, Camera Roll... from iPhone to Mac with SyncPod

If you’re looking to get ALL your photos off your iPhone—not just the ones taken with your iPhone and maybe you want to get all your audio and video too, iSkySoft SyncPod for Mac is a smart Mac OS app specially designed for iOS users to plug in and effortlessly manage all their media. Now, here’s how to use SyncPod to transfer photos from iPhone photos to Mac:

1. After download and install, connect your iPhone to your Mac and double click the SyncPod for Mac icon to launch it.

Download Intel version

2. On the left hand side of the window, click Photo to instantly bring up everything in your iPhone Photo Library. Now you can directly drag your individual photos or folders to the right side of the window and save to any folder on your Mac.

Note: The current version of SyncPod is not compatible with Lion (OS 10.7) and iOS 5.

photos from iPhone to Mac

That's it. The iPhone photos should now be on your Mac. Learn more info about the SyncPod, please go to user guide of SyncPod for Mac.

monsterp 2012-01-29 15:23
I'm running Leopard. Unfortunately the import option on Preview only allows you to import ONE image at a time, it opens it, then you have to click 'save as', etc, etc... It takes a good minute just to do all that. I'm going to have to wait for IOS 5.1 to solve this, hopefully, as this is impractical. iphoto is nice, but the huge duplication of photos on my hard drive are just annoying as well as wasting space... :-(
worldflippedup 2012-01-29 01:28
Thanks for your help! I was able to upload all of my my pictures form my iPhone to my MAC :) P.S Preview is the easiest way to do it.
easdfsa 2012-01-27 14:46
If the photos are saved on the iPhone's camera roll, the first solution is helpful, and if not, try the second one.
weywoiu 2012-01-27 14:40
Go to Apple Support Team for more help :)
Nats 2012-01-26 02:11
I keep getting a error message : The operation couldn’t be completed. (com.apple.ImageCaptureCore error -9912.) This is terribly frustrating, and I thought having an iphone would make my life easier but wth… everything has to be paid for or impossible to do. So what can be done when I get an error message on both preview and iphoto ???
Brercoon 2012-01-26 00:41
I am still struggling - I had a hard drive failure and lost my extensive file of picture on the iMac, but they had been synced to the iPhone. Hard drive is replaced, but I've not been able to move the photos from the iPone back to the iMac. Any help?
höppy 2012-01-25 15:44
You literally made my day!
hklyyyyy 2012-01-16 03:58
Apple will cry :)
Nthawkes 2012-01-15 17:59
Can't agree with you more. Spent the better part of two hours trying to get some photos off my iPhone and finally gave up. 30 seconds later, on my win7 machine, I was putting them on facebook. Mac = FAIL
EMT 2012-01-14 17:54
Geek you ROCK! I have been googling this trying to figure out a SIMPLE solution without having to downed some 3rd party software. Just tried Preview and it worked like a charm. Thank you!!!
r0eee 2012-01-12 04:32
I'm still having trouble uploading my pictures from my iPhone to my mac. On iPhoto it doesn't show devices and I don't know any other way to upload my pictures. I need help?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
DoRo 2012-01-10 14:18
Just as what the article above has said, Apple has provided you iPhoto and iCloud to transfer photos in your camera roll - images in this folder are shot by your iPhone camera, saved from safari, downloaded in your mail messages, produced by the built-in apps from Apple etc. So if your photos belong to these kinds, you don't need any third-party app to do your transfer. iPhoto and iCloud just do good. If your photos are not included in your Camera Roll folder, SyncPod is a good choice. But the app currently doesn't support iOS 5 and Mac OS X Lion. So if your iPhone is running iOS 5, transferring your photos via email still is your best choice. :)
Ptree65 2012-01-10 13:18
Thanks for clarifying Raj. My iphone is new so i'm just learning here. So far nothing has worked. I have managed to transfer some photos via email. Does any one know a better way? I'm guessing apple wants us to use the cloud. Either that or perhaps purchase an app? Like I said i'm a newbie, but I had expected my apple devices to communicate better than this. Makes me reluctant to use the iphone camera. Cheers.
Raj 2012-01-10 06:22
Just as what Mark said, "Preview only enables you to preview local files, no photos on your iPhone. Not helpful for this job."
Ptree65 2012-01-10 04:18
Preview won't let me download any photos from my 4S. Neither will iphoto. Have tried various suggestions from an ongoing web search, but to date nothing will work for me. Why is that, how come you guys can make it work. When I tried to use preview it said i had "an image capture core error -9912. Then preview unexpectedly shut down. Any suggestions...I am using a free app Camera+, could this have caused the problem. I am about to resort to emailing photo's to myself. It just seems a little silly is all!!
Lily 2012-01-04 02:18
Check solution 2 in this article.
JonnyBear 2012-01-03 20:27
This does not work for the iphone photo library. any other solutions?
Mark 2011-12-31 03:26
Preview only enables you to preview local files, no photos on your iPhone. Not helpful for this job.
Vividium 2011-12-30 22:14
GEEK...! You are the GOD of all that is rational and distributive! Oh, man, I cannot begin to TELL you how frustrated I am/was at the simple task of getting my pixels from A to B (iPhone to Mac HD). I mean, come on, iTunes/iPhoto is more like Windows circa 1993! And then you come along. With your fancy, easy, bone-simple answers (that the idiots at the Apple Store and Verizon Store didn't know): Use PREVIEW! Good ol' Preview. Good ol' Geek! Maybe I won't resort to mass murder/ritual suicide this week after all. Thanks Geek!
Bingo 2011-12-27 19:43
Thanks. This was driving me crazy for days. I clicked on Preview and was able to download everything. Whew....
Geek 2011-12-12 20:24
Hey did you know you can use Preview too? Just click File/Import from iPhone, when your iPhone is connected to your mac, and it does it all in less than a minute to any folder you want. Hope this makes you less angry, iPhones are nice :)
Geek 2011-12-12 20:24
@ZAKARIAGROUPCO Hey did you know you can use Preview too? Just click File/Import from iPhone, when your iPhone is connected to your mac, and it does it all in less than a minute to any folder you want. Hope this makes you less angry, iPhones are nice :)
ZAKARIAGROUPCO 2011-11-30 21:17
HOW THE FUCK IS IT SOOO HARD TO TAKE PHOTOS OFF A I PHONE AND PUT THEM ON A MAC LIKE WTF YOU NEED TO DOWNLOAD SHIT TO DO THAT FUCK IPHONE IM GOING BACK TO BLACKBERRY
Sonny Wong 2011-11-21 21:47
great stuff totally helpful :)

Photos from iPhone to Mac