JPEG storage help required!
Discussion
So old dog new tricks situation.
I have an iPhone with around 17,400 photos!
What I want to do is add these to my MacBook Air, organize them on that, and delete them off my iPhone to stop it wheezing away burdened with almost all its hard drive full
Now my MacBook also has limited storage, so I have a 1TB external drive where I would like to keep them
Im not interested in cloud back up at this point
In my (very) simple mind I would like to just connect the iPhone to the MacBook , drag and drop all the photos directly onto a the external drive(connected to the MacBook) under a folder called 'iPhone all'
After this I would like to view, via large thumbnails that are actually viewable so I don't need to load each one up, the photos and then drag and drop each one into a new specified folder folder that suits that photo content.
As I drag and drop the photos from the 'all photos' folder, the photo would be removed so only 1 copy of the photo exists (I said phot too many times in that sentence)
At the end I would be left with specifically titled folders making finding what I want easy, and then deleting any left overs in the All photos as they would be dups/ crap/ not required any longer
Finally, would be good to be able to then just transfer a few photos back to the iPhone.
I do not want to 'back up in the cloud' anything, at least not at this stage, just 1 copy on the external hard drive (am aware this could fail and its a case of all eggs in 1 basket, and I may look into that at a later date to be able o back up the external hard drive only. not interested in backing up my iPhone at all
So, can this (seemingly simple) thing be done? and if so do you have a step by step guide for an idiot to do it?
Note my iPhone is a 12Max pro running iOS 16.6.1 and the MacBook Air is the first with the M1 chip running macOS 15.0
I write the above as whenever I look up things the folder menu the option never seems to be there for me to click on!
Any YouTube links welcome as well, I've tried googling how to do stuff the menus the guide im looking at states I should click never seem to exist on my phone!
If successful I hope to keep this updated by doing it monthly is I don't get in this mess again
I have an iPhone with around 17,400 photos!
What I want to do is add these to my MacBook Air, organize them on that, and delete them off my iPhone to stop it wheezing away burdened with almost all its hard drive full
Now my MacBook also has limited storage, so I have a 1TB external drive where I would like to keep them
Im not interested in cloud back up at this point
In my (very) simple mind I would like to just connect the iPhone to the MacBook , drag and drop all the photos directly onto a the external drive(connected to the MacBook) under a folder called 'iPhone all'
After this I would like to view, via large thumbnails that are actually viewable so I don't need to load each one up, the photos and then drag and drop each one into a new specified folder folder that suits that photo content.
As I drag and drop the photos from the 'all photos' folder, the photo would be removed so only 1 copy of the photo exists (I said phot too many times in that sentence)
At the end I would be left with specifically titled folders making finding what I want easy, and then deleting any left overs in the All photos as they would be dups/ crap/ not required any longer
Finally, would be good to be able to then just transfer a few photos back to the iPhone.
I do not want to 'back up in the cloud' anything, at least not at this stage, just 1 copy on the external hard drive (am aware this could fail and its a case of all eggs in 1 basket, and I may look into that at a later date to be able o back up the external hard drive only. not interested in backing up my iPhone at all
So, can this (seemingly simple) thing be done? and if so do you have a step by step guide for an idiot to do it?
Note my iPhone is a 12Max pro running iOS 16.6.1 and the MacBook Air is the first with the M1 chip running macOS 15.0
I write the above as whenever I look up things the folder menu the option never seems to be there for me to click on!
Any YouTube links welcome as well, I've tried googling how to do stuff the menus the guide im looking at states I should click never seem to exist on my phone!
If successful I hope to keep this updated by doing it monthly is I don't get in this mess again
You're essentially reinventing the wheel that Mac has already invented.
What you're after you already have - of sorts.
On your MacBook is a native app called 'Photos'. The same app is what manages your photos on the iPhone. Assuming you have a basic iCloud account and that account is the same applied to both phone and MacBook then the same photos should appear on both.
Couple of things to keep in mind:
iCloud has 5GB of free storage capacity.
You say you are not interested in cloud back up but you are already using this as a default.
iCloud acts as the virtual 'bridge' between your phone and the MacBook. You can add a photo to Photos on the Mac and you will be able to see the same photo on the phone - and vice versa.
A library of your jpegs (including those you took on your phone) exists on your MacBook. The Photos app presents a lower-resolution of these when you view them. This will be optimised for the screen but the full resolution is there if you need it (such as printing).
You can either move that library to an external drive or duplicate to one if you want to back them up, but they are already backed up on your iCloud account.
It's possible that you may have exceeded the free 5GB limit and if so, you can purchase additional capacity. I'd personally recommend this as it's the easiest and most secure way to manage your images but if you really didn't want to do that, just add images to the Photos app on the MacBook and add to the relevant libraries.
You might need to do a little watching on Your Tube to fully understand the process but is worth the time invested as it's a really simple way to organise and keep images safe and synced.
HTH
What you're after you already have - of sorts.
On your MacBook is a native app called 'Photos'. The same app is what manages your photos on the iPhone. Assuming you have a basic iCloud account and that account is the same applied to both phone and MacBook then the same photos should appear on both.
Couple of things to keep in mind:
iCloud has 5GB of free storage capacity.
You say you are not interested in cloud back up but you are already using this as a default.
iCloud acts as the virtual 'bridge' between your phone and the MacBook. You can add a photo to Photos on the Mac and you will be able to see the same photo on the phone - and vice versa.
A library of your jpegs (including those you took on your phone) exists on your MacBook. The Photos app presents a lower-resolution of these when you view them. This will be optimised for the screen but the full resolution is there if you need it (such as printing).
You can either move that library to an external drive or duplicate to one if you want to back them up, but they are already backed up on your iCloud account.
It's possible that you may have exceeded the free 5GB limit and if so, you can purchase additional capacity. I'd personally recommend this as it's the easiest and most secure way to manage your images but if you really didn't want to do that, just add images to the Photos app on the MacBook and add to the relevant libraries.
You might need to do a little watching on Your Tube to fully understand the process but is worth the time invested as it's a really simple way to organise and keep images safe and synced.
HTH
Gassing Station | Photography & Video | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff