How to Transfer Photos from iPhone to Mac - iCloud Photo Library, AirDrop, iPhoto, Photos App and IOTransfer

Updated Aug 23,2016 | by Niko

If you are Mac users, the following article will introduce you how to transfer photos from iPhone to Mac in different ways: iCloud Photo Library, AirDrop, iPhoto, Photos App and IOTransfer.

As iPhone users, most of you certainly enjoy taking and watching photos on your iPhone device, but we all know that Photos & Camera stuff will occupy a huge amount of iPhone storage as photos increase. It will be a troublesome issue, especially for people who use 16GB iPhone.

No one would be willing to give up their photos and beautiful memories. The most feasible way is to transfer your iPhone photos to computer for backup and delete them from your iPhone. In this way, you can keep all your photos properly and free up space on iPhone at the same time. For Mac users, how to transfer photos from iPhone to Mac easily and quickly?

How to Transfer Photos from iPhone to Mac with iCloud Photo Library

iCloud Photo Library is one of the great features allowing you to transfer photos from iPhone to Mac without USB cable connection. The photo transmission from iPhone to Mac can be easily and seamlessly completed via Wi-Fi. Simply put, with iCloud Photo Library, you enable to upload photos from iPhone to Mac anywhere anytime.

How to transfer photos from iPhone to Mac? First of all, you need to setup iCloud on both iPhone and Mac and make sure you sign in to iCloud with the same Apple ID on the two devices.

iPhone: Settings > iCloud > Photos > turn on iCloud Photo Library

Mac: System Preferences > iCloud > Photos (Options) > iCloud Photo Library

When both set properly, the photos you take with iPhone will up to date and store in iCloud automatically and then you can access the photos from Mac.

However, the photos that you keep in iCloud Photo Library would take up the storage of iCloud and device. Since Apple offers only 5GB free iCloud storage, you need to buy more as your photos increase. If you want to save budget as well as your device storage, we suggest you to try some other approaches to transfer photos from iPhone to Mac.

How to Transfer Photos from iPhone to Mac with AirDrop

AirDrop is another excellent method that you can upload photos from iPhone to Mac without using USB cable. Different from iCloud Photo Library, you can only transfer photos from iPhone to a nearby Mac (within 9 meters). This method is recommended if you just transfer a few photos from iPhone to Mac.

To begin with, enable AirDrop on Mac: Finder > AirDrop (left side of the Finder window) > allow your Mac to find your iPhone device by clicking “Allow me to be discovered by: Everyone”.

Then, open the Control Center on iPhone > enable AirDrop and set it as discoverable to everyone > open the photo you want to transfer in Photos > tap “share” button and choose AirDrop > select your Mac on the list (a message would appear on your Mac that will ask you to accept the photo transfer) > choose Accept, and the photo will be transferred to Mac, you can find it in Documents column.

How to Transfer Photos from iPhone to Mac with iPhoto

As a photo manipulation application developed by Apple, iPhoto for Mac allows you to import, edit, print, organize and share photos. Here, we put emphasis on its “import” feature, and show you how to transfer photos from iPhone to Mac with iPhoto step by step.

Here's how to upload photos from iPhone to Mac via IOTransfer:

1.       Connect your iPhone to Mac with USB cable

2.       Open iPhoto, and the application will recognize all of your iPhone photos automatically

3.       iPhoto allows you to import all your iPhone photos or those selected

4.       When it’s done, iPhoto will ask if you want to delete or keep the photos on your iPhone.

Go to the Library > Photos, you are able to see all the iPhone photos that you import into iPhoto.

How to Transfer Photos from iPhone to Mac with Photos App

Without using iCloud Photo Library, you are allowed to transfer photos from iPhone to Mac with Photos App for OS X or EI Capitan. In new Mac OS system, Photos App replaces iPhoto with streamlined design and intuitive & powerful features. How to transfer photos from iPhone to Mac with Photos App?

1.       Connect your iPhone to Mac via USB cable

2.       Run Photos App

3.       Go to Import tab

4.       Select photos you want to transfer or transfer all the photos to Mac directly by clicking “Import All New Photos”. You can see the transferred photos in Albums tab.

How to Transfer Photos from iPhone to Mac with IOTransfer

IOTransfer is an easy-to-use but powerful iOS data transfer & management tool for music, movies, photos, apps, podcast, books and voice memos. With IOTransfer, you can transfer all your photos and folders from iPhone to Mac with just 1 click. It’s easy, fast and safe to use.

1.       Connect your iPhone to Mac with USB cable

2.       Run IOTransfer, and you can see all your iPhone photos and folders

3.       Select all iPhone photos or some of them and export them to your Mac

What makes IOTransfer different from other tools is that it offers you easy and fast two-way transfer. With it, you can not only transfer photos from iPhone to Mac, but also export those photos back to your iPhone. IOTransfer makes no limits for your iPhone photos. 

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