# iPhone photos import issue



## Selwin

Hello all,
After lots of LR updates on from LR6 to now Classic CC and numerous OSX -> MacOS and dot releases I still have the same issue, with three iPhone incarnations.
#1: There are no photos to import, when clearly there are and disconnecting / reconnecting iPhone lightning cable does help (sometimes restarting LR or Mac is necessary)
#2: The following files were not imported because they could not be read or the destination folder is not writable

Basically, using my phone as a camera is becoming such a nuisance when importing is due that I am looking for a shirt pocket P&S. But I have my phone with me always so I would really like to make this work.
Issues happen as from iPhone 5s, then 6splus now 8plus. iOS 9, 10, 11 and now 12.1.3 (fully updated), MacOS El Capitan through Mojave, now 10.14.2. Classic CC version 8.1. Oh I almost forgot: the issue appears on three different macs with different OS versions too.

I searched these forums as well as others and I found quite a lot of reports of similar issues, however none of them result in a fix. All I read is the usual "did you upgrade to the latest version" and such. After so many years of issues I kinda expected to find a thread (or some) containing detailed descriptions of the issues and the fixes. Now that I don't find that, I am almost starting to think it could be hardware related, even though as I said above the same issues appear on different pieces of hardware and software.

My workaround is this:
1. Try to import part of the photos and videos and delete all successfully imported ones from the iPhone. This is trial and error and very tedious as LR hangs whenever I stumble across photos or videos that refuse to import so I need to restart everything.
2. Isolate the troublesome photos and videos and copy them over directly from the MacOS photos app, by using the "show contents" command when right clicking the photo library in Finder.

To be complete I shoot photos and videos using the proprietary photos app in iOS, as well as a photo app called Halide, which is able to shoot RAW photos. Before anyone picks up from this piece of info: the troublesome photos and videos are always .JPG and .MOV, never the RAWs. In fact the halide RAWs are the ones I can start off with without issues.

So I apologise for the long post but I wanted the issue description and further info to be complete. I hope someone can point me to a lead of interest.

Thanks!


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## Califdan

Don't know nuances with Apple products, but here's what works well for me on my Android.  

1)  install the Lightroom CC mobile app for your OS

2)  Either shoot with the LR app or set the LR app to auto import images shot with the default app

3)  turn on Cloud Sync in LR Classic on your desktop

When I take a photo on my phone it auto imports into LR CC on my phone and auto syncs to the cloud.  Then it auto downloads to my Desktop LR Classic all without human intervention.   No manual import operations needed.  On Android this words for still images but not video's (yet), however I understand that in the iPhone world video's work as well.   

In my case, the default photos app for Android captures JPG's.   But the LR Mobile app shoots in RAW.  So, if I want the benefit of a RAW capture, I shoot with the Lightroom  App, but when that is overkill for my purpose I can shoot with the Android supplied app.

The only drawback I have found so far using this method (other than not allowing video's in the Android version) is that sometimes I take photos on my phone that I don't really need to sync all the way back to LR Classic, but they do anyway.


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## LouieSherwin

You might want to give PhotoSync a look. I personally gave up on trying to have Lightroom  reliably import from my iPhone. Plus I have to manage photos from my wife's iPhone. 

Basically I use PhotoSync to copy images from the iPhones to a set of folders on my Mac. From there you can initiate Import by simply dragging this folder to the Lightroom icon on the dock which starts Import. By using "Move" in Import Lightroom automatically cleans up the PhotoSync target folder. I use a couple of Import presets to manage metadata. 

PhotoSync also keeps track of what has already been sent to my desktop so I don't have any problems with duplicates. 

-louie


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## Selwin

Thanks Dan and Louie for your time to respond. Highly appreciated. At least I seem not to be the only one still struggling with iPhone imports. 
The  cloud option is a good one but I also need an offline solution as I often find myself on the move, left without or slow and/or expensive internet access. I want to be able to securely import my photos even when in remote locations like say Francois peron NP Australia. 
So the utility app may come in handy as well. I will try it!
Thank you both for your help and suggestions!


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## Selwin

As a follow-up post, I'd like to say that the Photosync app suggestion made me try to use the Image capture app in Mojave. At first connect attempt the app did not show any photos. After unplugging the cable and reconnecting still no photos. After switching off and on iPhone I got the pictures. Capturing to hard drive was effortless and so was importing the folder with photos into Lightroom. I don't know what it is with direct import into Lightroom but it is cumbersome to say the least. I think I will continue to use image capture if it continues to work reliably as today.


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## Selwin

Also, to be complete, this is the error message that I got from Lightroom when trying to import directly - and after having to wait for minutes and minutes and not a single photo showing up. I interrupted the import process by clicking the x at the right of the import progress bar, top left corner. I then got the following error message:

The following files were not imported because they could not be read or the destination folder is not writable. (3)
    IMG_9479.MOV
    IMG_9548.MOV
    IMG_9788.JPG

I have numerous similar error messages saved in a dedicated folder. It's always more or less the same message. The first I have saved is from 2016 but there were many before that.

I examined the three files in the finder and nothing seems to be wrong with them. 

So if anyone has trouble importing from iPhone directly into LR, here is what worked for me today:

insert iPhone and set Settings -> Screen -> Automatic lock to never
open Image Capture app in MacOS
if there are no pictures: release cable, switch iPhone off and back on, insert cable and try again
set Image Capture to copy your iPhone's photos and videos to a separate temporary folder on your computer
Import from this folder using normal import preset so files are copied (not moved) according to your preferences, or whatever you think is right for you
backup your catalog and photos/videos
delete photos and videos off your iPhone and delete the temp folder on your hard drive


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## Jim Wilde

To be honest, I don't really know why any user with a Lightroom subscription should need to jump through those hoops to get their phone pictures into Lightroom. My workflow is fairly simple:


Take picture/video.
Wait a minute or two and picture/video appears in Lightroom (in the appropriate dated sub-folder and in my designated workflow collection).

Of course, it needs to be setup correctly, but that's just a matter of getting the settings correct on the phone and in Lightroom, and after that it's a totally seamless process which works consistently.


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## Selwin

Hi Jim,
Thanks for your reply! I'm fairly sure you mean that your workflow involves using the internet to get your photos into Lightroom. What I want to do is copy them over by using a cable for occasions when I have no internet connection.
That said I am interested in your workflow setup. I haven't been around on this forum for a while so this may all be old stuff but nevertheless I'd be happy if you could share what you use or point to a good source.

Thanks,
Selwin


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## Martin Owen

Just a thought. If you have no internet connection, but have your iPhone and a Mac (I’m assuming the issue is to get images out of Lightroom Mobile on the phone to Lightroom CC or Classic on the Mac) wouldn’t the iPhone and Mac set up a local Bluetooth connection to enable transfers locally?

Have I got the completely wrong end of the stick?


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## Selwin

Hi Martin, thanks for your suggestion, but no i don't use LR mobile on the iPhone. I have my photos in the photos app on the iPhone and I wish to be able to copy them to the Mac while offline.


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## Martin Owen

Ah, I understand.  But...wouldn’t the iPhone and Mac (assuming they’re close) be able to set up a blue tooth connection to enable transfer? ..or even using AirDrop?


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## Selwin

I guess they could, but I have a cable so in my experience that always beats bluetooth/airdrop. The issue isn't - or rather "wasn't" now that I have found the image capture solution - that there is no connection between the two devices, but that LR appears to take it very slow and refuses to import lots of images saying they can't be read or there is no space available.
Now that I use the two step copy workaround it takes a fraction of the time even though I have two steps. Copying 3GB worth of images and videos only took two minutes or so to copy and 10 seconds to import (excluding 1:1 previews)


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## Selwin

Selwin said:


> ...nevertheless I'd be happy if you could share what you use or point to a good source.


Hang on i believe Louie’s explanation above may be exactly what you mean. I will try that first.


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## LouieSherwin

Selwin said:


> Hi Martin, thanks for your suggestion, but no i don't use LR mobile on the iPhone. I have my photos in the photos app on the iPhone and I wish to be able to copy them to the Mac while offline.



You can use PhotoSync for this. I believe that it needs to use  WiFi you simply enable Personal Hotspot on your iPhone and then PhotoSync can communicate  directly with your Mac. It will also work on any available WiFi network  without needing the to go out on the internet for any external service.

-louie


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## Selwin

Hi Louie, yes I'm sure PhotoSync will do fine. However Image Capture does all I need quick and soldi so far. But thanks for the suggestion. I try to keep my devices as clean as possible: only install 3rd party software if necessary.
I tried Califdan's explanation (sorry it wasn't Louie's, my bad) in post #2 in this thread and it works like a charm. So that will be my all day solution for now. And for those occasions where I don't have internet access Image Capture will be at hand.

Basically I'm all set now for iPhone import.

Thanks all for your contributions.


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## Jim Wilde

Selwin said:


> I tried Califdan's explanation (sorry it wasn't Louie's, my bad) in post #2 in this thread and it works like a charm. So that will be my all day solution for now. And for those occasions where I don't have internet access Image Capture will be at hand.


Yep, that was the method I was referring to.


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## Selwin

OK guys I'd like to take this method one step further. How about deleting images? My iPhone picture library needs maintenance, i.e. I need to delete photos off my phone at some point or my iPhone's memory will be full.

My approach prior to using this automated process (manual import from phone to LR Classic CC and earlier) has always been to completely remove all photos from my iPhones once I have them in Lightroom. YMMV, but whether you delete all or just a couple of photos, for this question it doesn't matter.

So what I have now:

I have set LR mobile to automatically add photos and videos from the film roll
In Lightroom Mobile Current I have a mirror of the photos and videos in my film roll - this auto import feature works
I have created a folder on my hard drive in LR Classic CC called "LR CC cloud sync" and I set this folder in Preferences under "Specify location for Lightroom CC ecosystem's images" and I ticked "use subfolders formatted by capture date"
In this folder, I actually get the photos that were populated in LR Mobile Current - this feature works too.

Now what?


I tried to move the date stamped folders in Lightroom Classic CC out of the folder "LR CC cloud sync" to an appropriate  location in my LR Classic CC library - so far nothing else happens
Then I deleted the same photos from the LR Mobile folder
Finally I deleted the same photos from my iPhone's picture library

Q1
Is this the correct workflow? All being automated and synced, I would actually expect that a delete (or move) action on one end (LR Classic CC) would also delete the same photos in LR Mobile. I tried to wait for a while for sync to happen but it doesn't.

Q2
I also tried to delete some photos from my iPhone picture library to see if they also automatically disappear in LR Mobile, but they don't. So step 2 above (auto import from iPhone photo lib to LR Mobile) appears to be an actual "copy" command so do I have two instances of every photo and video on my phone? In that case I need to delete the same pics from both apps to get them off my iPhone.

Thanks!


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## Victoria Bampton

The move won't affect the synced photos, because LR cloud knows nothing about folders on discs. If you actually delete the files from your Classic catalog (for example, the fuzzy ones), then they should also get deleted from LR's cloud but not from the iOS Photos app.

As you note, the import into LR mobile is a copy. It can't delete from the iOS Photos app. There is a way to delete photos from Photos app while importing into LR mobile, but it requires using the iOS Shortcuts app to "send" the photos to LR, rather than something Adobe's doing.


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## Jim Wilde

Selwin said:


> Q2
> I also tried to delete some photos from my iPhone picture library to see if they also automatically disappear in LR Mobile, but they don't. So step 2 above (auto import from iPhone photo lib to LR Mobile) appears to be an actual "copy" command so do I have two instances of every photo and video on my phone? In that case I need to delete the same pics from both apps to get them off my iPhone.


What Victoria said. But also note that you don't have to keep the copy of the iPhone photos permanently inside the LRCC app, you can use the LRCC settings to request that only Smart Previews are downloaded to the LRCC app. Once the originals have uploaded to the cloud you can clear them from the local cache, then whenever you want to access the image on the phone only a smart preview will be downloaded.


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## Selwin

Thank you so much Victoria. If I understand that correctly all I need to do is 
(1) move the folders from the sync master folder to their appropriate camera folders 
(2) check that all images made it from iOS photos to LR Classic CC
(3) delete all photos from the iOS photos app 
(4) delete the same photos from the LR CC iOS app
A lot of manual work still, with the only benefit to have the iOS photos app contents transferred to LR Classic CC automatically.
I can't help thinking now that a straightforward Image Capture copy action is less of a hassle in my situation. 

So this got me thinking. The Adobe engineers have thought about this thoroughly so if I think it's impractical I'm probably missing the point, right? Just don't know which point I am not seeing.

In the scenario that all photos taken with the iPhone camera are to stay on the iPhone indefinitely I can see how this method pays off. But assuming there will always come a time when the user needs to remove them again, that user needs to check which photos are safe in LR desktop and delete them from two iPhone apps.


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## Selwin

Jim Wilde said:


> What Victoria said. But also note that you don't have to keep the copy of the iPhone photos permanently inside the LRCC app, you can use the LRCC settings to request that only Smart Previews are downloaded to the LRCC app. Once the originals have uploaded to the cloud you can clear them from the local cache, then whenever you want to access the image on the phone only a smart preview will be downloaded.


Thanks Jim, that could be interesting, but I'm not quite on the same page yet. Are you talking about iPhone camera roll photos only? And are you talking about settings in the LR CC iOS app or settings in the LR CC Classic desktop app? And what is the local cache? Is that the iOS photos app? Sorry I'm confused.


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## Jim Wilde

Selwin said:


> So this got me thinking. The Adobe engineers have thought about this thoroughly so if I think it's impractical I'm probably missing the point, right? Just don't know which point I am not seeing.


The point you're missing is that one of the main benefits of the Adobe cloud is that all the images that you put in there are available to view on (and share from) any of your synced devices (and in the case of the LRCC Web app, practically anywhere in the world). It's not designed as a specific means of importing your phone images easily into LR Classic, with the intention of subsequently removing them from the cloud. Yes, you can restrict it to that narrow use-case, but it really is missing the main advantage of the LRCC ecosystem.

I have 15k images synced to the cloud, from all my cameras including my phone, and they are thus always with me on my phone, my iPads and any browser. Furthermore, all the images I share from the cloud are always the current edited versions, there is no need to export or otherwise publish them whenever I make changes. The view is always up to date.


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## Jim Wilde

Selwin said:


> Thanks Jim, that could be interesting, but I'm not quite on the same page yet. Are you talking about iPhone camera roll photos only? And are you talking about settings in the LR CC iOS app or settings in the LR CC Classic desktop app? And what is the local cache? Is that the iOS photos app? Sorry I'm confused.


No, not the camera roll photos, as Victoria explained those you have to manage yourself after they've been imported into the LRCC iOS app.

The settings I refer to are the LRCC iOS settings, and the local cache is the space used by the LRCC iOS app for the storing of all its files (both originals and previews).  You can use the "Clear Cache" option within the app, either globally or on a per album basis, to clear out any data no longer needed (such as imported originals if the current setting is for Smart Previews only).


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## Victoria Bampton

Selwin said:


> In the scenario that all photos taken with the iPhone camera are to stay on the iPhone indefinitely I can see how this method pays off. But assuming there will always come a time when the user needs to remove them again, that user needs to check which photos are safe in LR desktop and delete them from two iPhone apps.


I just delete everything from Photos app once it's in CC and uploaded to the cloud, so I don't have to track two copies.


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## LeeMiller

I have a separate iPhone question I signed on to ask about, but noticed this thread.  Does anyone else have trouble importing directly from the iphone? For me it is seamless; as easy as from an SD card. I use ImageCapture to select and delete all after the import. I'd also lobby for AirDrop if you really need to transfer first to the computer. These days it's fast and easy.

Here's my question, which I've been completely unsuccessful at finding anything useful to address online. Why on earth are some of my images given bizarre, non-standard names? Instead of the normal IMG_ prefix, I get random four-letter prefixes like  KYHC or VAAK, with a number that's completely out of sequence. I can't find any common cause. Anyone else?


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## Selwin

Hello all,
After lots of LR updates on from LR6 to now Classic CC and numerous OSX -> MacOS and dot releases I still have the same issue, with three iPhone incarnations.
#1: There are no photos to import, when clearly there are and disconnecting / reconnecting iPhone lightning cable does help (sometimes restarting LR or Mac is necessary)
#2: The following files were not imported because they could not be read or the destination folder is not writable

Basically, using my phone as a camera is becoming such a nuisance when importing is due that I am looking for a shirt pocket P&S. But I have my phone with me always so I would really like to make this work.
Issues happen as from iPhone 5s, then 6splus now 8plus. iOS 9, 10, 11 and now 12.1.3 (fully updated), MacOS El Capitan through Mojave, now 10.14.2. Classic CC version 8.1. Oh I almost forgot: the issue appears on three different macs with different OS versions too.

I searched these forums as well as others and I found quite a lot of reports of similar issues, however none of them result in a fix. All I read is the usual "did you upgrade to the latest version" and such. After so many years of issues I kinda expected to find a thread (or some) containing detailed descriptions of the issues and the fixes. Now that I don't find that, I am almost starting to think it could be hardware related, even though as I said above the same issues appear on different pieces of hardware and software.

My workaround is this:
1. Try to import part of the photos and videos and delete all successfully imported ones from the iPhone. This is trial and error and very tedious as LR hangs whenever I stumble across photos or videos that refuse to import so I need to restart everything.
2. Isolate the troublesome photos and videos and copy them over directly from the MacOS photos app, by using the "show contents" command when right clicking the photo library in Finder.

To be complete I shoot photos and videos using the proprietary photos app in iOS, as well as a photo app called Halide, which is able to shoot RAW photos. Before anyone picks up from this piece of info: the troublesome photos and videos are always .JPG and .MOV, never the RAWs. In fact the halide RAWs are the ones I can start off with without issues.

So I apologise for the long post but I wanted the issue description and further info to be complete. I hope someone can point me to a lead of interest.

Thanks!


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## Victoria Bampton

Do you use any other camera apps Lee? A camera app having its own designation would be my best guess.


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## LeeMiller

No -- it seems to have that name on the phone. I tried a couple different transfer methods and looked at it with different apps. No one else as seen this?


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## Victoria Bampton

Google's not turning up anything useful either. It might be interesting to find out whether they already have those names in Photos app (ruling out Lightroom). I don't think Photos can show the filenames, but there are exif viewer apps that may be able to do so.


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## LeeMiller

LR is definitely not the culprit. Same name if I transfer them to my laptop  with different methods and look at them with preview. It is bizarre that I can't find any reference to it either.


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## camner

Jim Wilde said:


> To be honest, I don't really know why any user with a Lightroom subscription should need to jump through those hoops to get their phone pictures into Lightroom. My workflow is fairly simple:
> 
> 
> Take picture/video.
> Wait a minute or two and picture/video appears in Lightroom (in the appropriate dated sub-folder and in my designated workflow collection).
> Of course, it needs to be setup correctly, but that's just a matter of getting the settings correct on the phone and in Lightroom, and after that it's a totally seamless process which works consistently.


I would love it if things worked that simply for me! I have to have a step 1.5 to make this work, so for me, it works like this:

Take picture(s)/video(s)
Manually start up Lightroom CC on my iPhone, and wait for LR CC on the iPhone to (slowly) auto import the images taken on my iPhone since the last time I did this
Wait (even longer) for Lightroom CC on the iPhone to upload the pictures to the cloud
Now the pictures/videos appear in Lightroom CC (Desktop)
I DO have LR CC (iPhone) set to auto import, but it doesn't happen until I manually start up LR CC (iPhone).  

Perhaps I am missing a setting somewhere?  LR CC (iPhone) doesn't work in the background automatically (at least not until I open it up—after opening it I can work in other apps, turn off the screen, etc. and it will reliably work in the background). 

This behavior is the same for me on my iPhone 6S and my wife's iPhone 8.


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## camner

It does occur to me that there may be a crucial difference between my workflow and that of Jim's.  I take iPhone pix with the built-in camera app.  If Jim takes his iPhone pix with the LR CC app, then the app is already open and the syncing should occur as quickly as he describes.


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## Jim Wilde

camner said:


> It does occur to me that there may be a crucial difference between my workflow and that of Jim's.  I take iPhone pix with the built-in camera app.  If Jim takes his iPhone pix with the LR CC app, then the app is already open and the syncing should occur as quickly as he describes.


Correct. But having to start the LRCC app after taking pictures with a different camera app still isn't a problem for me. Yes, I have to wait a few seconds for the auto-import to occur, but usually no more than that.


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## Victoria Bampton

It's an iOS limitation. On Android, it can import in the background.


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## Selwin

Victoria Bampton said:


> I just delete everything from Photos app once it's in CC and uploaded to the cloud, so I don't have to track two copies.


I do understand what you say. But I am still puzzled why on earth I would use the iPhone Lightroom CC app to get my photos in Lightroom Classic CC. I've been trying it out for a couple of weeks now and managing is kind of hard. My workflow is:
1. Set the LR CC iPhone app to "automatically import photos and videos from film roll"
2. In LR Classic CC desktop app I checked "Specify location for Lightroom CC ecosystem's images:  "/Volumes/masters/LR CC cloud sync"
3. Shoot images and videos on iPhone, the content is stored both in the Apple photo library and in the LR CC iPhone app in "Lightroom Mobile Current"
4. All images and videos are nicely imported in to LR CC (web based, I checked) and subsequently sync'ed to the LR CC cloud sync folder, organised in date stamped sub folders.

Now what?

My base objective is to always remove all photos from the LR CC photo library. I always process my photos to completion on my computer, not on my phone or iPad. Only a few percent of iPhone pics make it back to CC anyway and they will be shared as part of a synced collection.

So:
5. in LR Classic CC, I move the date stamped folders out of the "LR CC cloud sync" folder to my usual folder hierarchy (organise per camera and below that per date)
6. I process the photos on my computer
Strange thing is that even though I moved the date stamped folders out of the "LR CC cloud sync" folder on my computer (step 5), edits I process on my computer are still synced to my phone, because when I look in the iOS LR CC app I see those changes. So the link is not broken by moving the pictures.

7. On my phone, I delete the entire contents of the "Lightroom Mobile Current" folder from time to time
Strange thing here is that even though there's still a link that updates edits across LR Classic CC - iPhone - iPad, deleting the photos from the "Lightroom Mobile Current" folder on my iPhone does not delete those pictures from my classic CC catalog. It's good this way, because I don't want to lose those photos from my LR Classic catalog. But the link apparently works for edits, not for deletion.

8. Like you Victoria I delete the Apple photo library too once I have everything in CC

Q1. Is this a common workflow?
Q2. For my use case, wouldn't a simple weekly tethered import from iPhone to Mac using the proprietary MacOS "Image Capture" app be a whole lot easier? 
- No need to delete the photos from the LR CC app (tedious)
- I already have a synced collection in my LR Classic catalog "Current work" that I sync to the LR CC ecosystem so I can edit the last shoot on iPhone and iPad. On my computer, I can simply remove those photos from that collection once they are done


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## Selwin

There is another hassle. After just successfully completing steps 5-8 on my iPhone, all seems well. 
I have about 8 images on my iPhone in Lightroom Mobile Current
I have a synced collection with 129 Australia images
I have 14 images in Current work

Then I open the LR CC app on my iPad and I get error messages in LR Classic CC on my computer. Suddenly LR Classic CC starts "Syncing 103 photos" where before all was synced. This is probably happening because on the iPad those deleted photos were already synced and now they are missing in my classic CC catalog.
On my iPad now are 258 images,
- 129 of which belong to a synced collection of australia pics,
- 14 are part of current work,
- 32 are in Lightroom Mobile Current (and I now have 24 more pics in the Lightroom Mobile Current folder on my iPhone that I just deleted successfully so that is a hassle too
So 83 on the iPad are pictures I had on my iPhone but I deleted them before
LR Classic CC catalog gets stuck "Syncing 103 photos"
New images I shoot with my iPhone are not synced to my LR Classic CC catalog, probably because it's stuck syncing other images that are not in the LR CC ecosystem.

When I check my iPhone I notice that many of the images that I deleted from my iPhone LR CC app and that were still on my iPad have been synced back to my iPhone. Sigh. 

Basically it's a mess.

If I did something inappropriate that caused this I'd really like to know. I appreciate your help!


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## camner

I wish I could say that I understood exactly when and how LR deals with photos that are syncing and what causes them to sync or not sync.

My workflow is similar to yours, Selwin, but not quite as complex.  


I let LR CC sync photos from both my iPhone and my wife’s iPhone to LR Classic on my desktop.  This part of the process works fairly seamlessly, though I do have to remember to launch LR CC on the iPhones  from time to time, because although LR CC on the iPhone will continue to sync in the background AFTER it is launched, it won’t automatically start syncing in the background without a manual launch first.
Once the images are synced to the desktop, they appear in LR Classic in THREE places:
In the Folders pane at the bottom in the special folders LR Classic sets up for the PHYSICAL images LR syncs from the cloud.
In the Catalog pane in “All Synced Photographs”
In the Collections pane under “From LR Mobile”

I now move the images from within LR Classic from the “special folders” to my previously established folder tree
NOTE: This does NOT remove the images from “All Synced Photographs” nor from the “From LR Mobile” collection

Because I only use the Adobe cloud to get images from the iPhones to my desktop, I now delete the photos from “All Synced Photographs.”
About 75% of the time (a very rough estimate), that’s that...my images are where I want them in LR Classic and they aren’t syncing.  BUT, periodically, I notice one or more of the following:

The image count in “All Synced Photographs” does not match the image count in the “From LR Mobile” folder, even though I know I have not put any of those photos in any other synced collection (I don’t have any!).
The image count in “All Synced Photographs” does not match the image count of the synced photos when I go to Lightroom on the web.
The image counts in “All Synced Photographs,” the synced photos visible on Lightroom on the web, and the photos in LR CC on the iPhone do not match.
At that point, I have these additional steps to my workflow:

I silently curse Adobe for mucking things up with the sync
I silently curse myself for not having given up yet on using LR CC and the cloud to sync photos from the iPhone to LR Classic
I spend some time making sure that the various photos that seem to be hanging around these various locations where they shouldn’t be really are physically on my desktop hard drive so I don’t accidentally lose images I want
I delete the contents of “All Synced Photographs” and the “From LR Mobile” collections (sometimes, but not always, doing the first takes care of the second)
I go to Lightroom on the web and after letting the sync take place from step 4 I delete anything I see hanging around there
I go to LR CC on the iPhone and after letting the sync take place from steps 4&5 I delete anything I see hanging around in LR CC on the iPhone.


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## Selwin

Okay I went to the Adobe CC web interface and deleted the same photos again (about 80). Now the LR Classic CC catalog says syncing only 2 photos, but it still gets stuck. So I decided to systematically start removing photo's from CC cloud ecosystem (from iPhone, from iPad, from web interface) until the classic CC catalog would finally clear its sync queue. It finally did after deleting one particular photo.
I don't know if this will happen again, but I will give it another week to find out.

Edit: @camber I just noticed you posted while I was composing this message. Will check out your workflow after diner time (it's 6:37 PM here in Europe).


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## Selwin

camner said:


> I wish I could say that I understood exactly when and how LR deals with photos that are syncing and what causes them to sync or not sync.
> 
> My workflow is similar to yours, Selwin, but not quite as complex.
> 
> 
> I let LR CC sync photos from both my iPhone and my wife’s iPhone to LR Classic on my desktop.  This part of the process works fairly seamlessly, though I do have to remember to launch LR CC on the iPhones  from time to time, because although LR CC on the iPhone will continue to sync in the background AFTER it is launched, it won’t automatically start syncing in the background without a manual launch first.
> Once the images are synced to the desktop, they appear in LR Classic in THREE places:
> In the Folders pane at the bottom in the special folders LR Classic sets up for the PHYSICAL images LR syncs from the cloud.
> In the Catalog pane in “All Synced Photographs”
> In the Collections pane under “From LR Mobile”
> 
> I now move the images from within LR Classic from the “special folders” to my previously established folder tree
> NOTE: This does NOT remove the images from “All Synced Photographs” nor from the “From LR Mobile” collection
> 
> Because I only use the Adobe cloud to get images from the iPhones to my desktop, I now delete the photos from “All Synced Photographs.”
> About 75% of the time (a very rough estimate), that’s that...my images are where I want them in LR Classic and they aren’t syncing.  BUT, periodically, I notice one or more of the following:
> 
> The image count in “All Synced Photographs” does not match the image count in the “From LR Mobile” folder, even though I know I have not put any of those photos in any other synced collection (I don’t have any!).
> The image count in “All Synced Photographs” does not match the image count of the synced photos when I go to Lightroom on the web.
> The image counts in “All Synced Photographs,” the synced photos visible on Lightroom on the web, and the photos in LR CC on the iPhone do not match.
> At that point, I have these additional steps to my workflow:
> 
> I silently curse Adobe for mucking things up with the sync
> I silently curse myself for not having given up yet on using LR CC and the cloud to sync photos from the iPhone to LR Classic
> I spend some time making sure that the various photos that seem to be hanging around these various locations where they shouldn’t be really are physically on my desktop hard drive so I don’t accidentally lose images I want
> I delete the contents of “All Synced Photographs” and the “From LR Mobile” collections (sometimes, but not always, doing the first takes care of the second)
> I go to Lightroom on the web and after letting the sync take place from step 4 I delete anything I see hanging around there
> I go to LR CC on the iPhone and after letting the sync take place from steps 4&5 I delete anything I see hanging around in LR CC on the iPhone.


 
I studied your workflow and fixes. So glad there's at least one other user struggling with similar issues. And one who's apparently  considering to give up . I checked my panes. I now have 144 synced photographs.
129 australia pics in a synced collection
1 virtual copy of one of the 129 australia pics that I created last week (some time after creating and syncing the collection) that apparently automatically syncs to the CC cloud but it isn't in my australia collection because I didn't add it.
8 images in my LR ecosystem sync folder "LR CC cloud sync". These are eight new photos I shot tonight and they synced well.
4 images in my "current work" collection.

These numbers reflect the numbers in my classic desktop catalog.

Then I have 166 synced duplicates. These are images that I imported using the old way (connect iPhone USB cable and import) on top of the automated cloud sync. Apparently LR classic CC imported the physical file only once and created VC's for each duplicate. So I need to check which of the duplicates I processed and toss the rest.  -- And stick to one import method only from now on --.

I wrote quite some text today but the bottom line question is why use sync if it's only for importing -- weekly tethered imports are much less work because I don't need to delete any photos in my iOS LR CC app. 

If some of us like to work on our freshly shot images before getting to our computers (on the bus / train / plane) then yes sure, having LR CC iOS app import the camera roll is a very smart concept. This is the only reason why I will continue to evaluate this method for a couple of weeks more and then see where I get.


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## Selwin

Jim Wilde said:


> To be honest, I don't really know why any user with a Lightroom subscription should need to jump through those hoops to get their phone pictures into Lightroom. My workflow is fairly simple:
> 
> 
> Take picture/video.
> Wait a minute or two and picture/video appears in Lightroom (in the appropriate dated sub-folder and in my designated workflow collection).
> 
> Of course, it needs to be setup correctly, but that's just a matter of getting the settings correct on the phone and in Lightroom, and after that it's a totally seamless process which works consistently.


Coming back to an old topic, but I found that when using your automatic work flow, iPhone Live Photos don't import well, only the JPEG/HEIC part of it.


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## Jim Wilde

I only use the LR camera, so that's seamless. But is there *any* workflow that gets Live Photos imported into Lightroom?


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## Selwin

Yes, Image Capture will import Live Photos (well, the still and the mov separately) which can then be imported into LR. Alternatively, syncing the entire iPhone library to a Mac (along with iPad photos if present) and then Menu -> Archive ->Export -> Export unchanged original (or smth of the like, my version is Dutch) does the same. But it is a two step process. Either way, LR cannot handle the Apple Live Photos container so there will be a JPG/HEIC along with a MOV in Lightroom. But at least you'll have the option to use it.
In a workflow where all photos are consequently taken off of the iPhone (after LR import) this is an acceptable route for me. If applied carefully as described, the still and the video file can in fact be reimported into Apple's photo library and will end up in Apple's Live Photo container again, and subsequently be categorised as a Live Photo in the toolbar.
The whole point of my workflow is that I want to do the culling in Lightroom, apply my flag/rating/keyword/Edit workflow in LR, then create collections of those series and export them back into Apple's photo library so they will get synced to my phone and AppleTV 4k.


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## dfkotz

I found this thread because I have the same problem as noted in the original post: LR Classic 9.1 hangs during import from an iPhone connected via USB cable.  It imports photos just fine, but not the videos.  Has anyone found an actual solution to this problem?  It's clearly a bug in LRCC.  This thread offers workarounds and alternate workflows.   For me, any workflow involving the cloud is a non-starter because I often live and work in places without Internet access, or with slow/expensive Internet access – and anyway, a cable is always faster than any wireless link or cloud connection.


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## dfkotz

Yes, one can use Image Capture to import photos/videos onto a Desktop, then drag them into LR Classic CC, but you should be careful if you are using a recent iPhones with HEIC capability.  Unless you've set your iPhone's camera settings to "maintain compatibility", which I would not recommend, it captures images and videos in HEIC format.    I understand the re-compression from HEIC to JPG, and conversion to JPG's limited sRGB color space,  is likely to reduce image quality.   So I try to avoid it.

By default, Image Capture converts photos to JPG on import, unless you set the little "Keep originals" checkbox in the lower-left corner.   Airdrop will transfer the files as HEIC.  LR Classic CC can import photos in their native HEIC format.  

LR Classic CC imports Live photos as a pair of files (HEIC + MOV),  as already noted.   Image Capture imports Live photos as a pair of files (HEIC + MOV if you "Keep originals", otherwise JPG + MOV).


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## Victoria Bampton

Hi dfkotz, welcome to the forum! Which operating system version are you using? There's a bunch of issues with Catalina 10.5.2 right now.


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## dfkotz

Mojave: MacOS 10.14.6 (18G2022)


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## Victoria Bampton

Hmmmm, that's not expected. What happens when videos are included in your iPhone import? DynamicMediaServer goes a bit nuts if you look in Activity Monitor?


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## Selwin

Do you happen to have an app called “Soundflower” installed? It calls Mojave’s videotoolbox and may cause trouble. I got rid of it. If not, check your activity monitor like the queen suggested. Select CPU and sort cpu % descending. Any 100+ processes are interesting. When I encounter iPhone import issues (I regularly experienced the “no photos found” issue) I could always solve it by rebooting my Mac. You could download and run the free GO64 app to see if you have any 32bit apps left, something inevitable to do anyway if you are planning for Catalina. 
finally, go to the App Store and download Etrecheck (free) and see what it comes up with. 
if all this doesn’t solve it please report back.


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## LouieSherwin

Hi @dfkotz, 

I gave up a long time ago trying to import directly from my iPhones into Lightroom. It just seemed to be one problem after another. I am also the family photo archivist. So I am regularly pulling images and videos from both my and my wife's iPhones and importing them into my Lightroom catalog. 

The solution that I use is the PhotoSync app that runs on IOS and my Mac. On the IOS side it keeps track of everything that it has transferred so only transfers the new images and videos. It is a two step process similar to image transfer but much easier implement. I simply start the app on either iPhone or iPad and tell it to transfer all the new images. 

You have a user defined folder structure on the receiving Mac. There some canned presets that you can use or you can define your own. I currently use a custom one that puts the images and videos into separate folders because I treat them a little differently when importing. In the Lightroom Import dialog I use the "Move" option. This cleans out the PhotoSync folders and puts the images into my standard data based Lightroom folder structure. 

The PhotoSync developers have done a very good job of keeping up with all the changes in IOS and MacOS, much better than Adobe. Adobe seems to want us to all move to CC but I'm not about to pay another $9.99 just so my wife can sync her iPhone photos to CC. 

I hope that you my find this useful.

-louie


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## Selwin

Hi dfkotz,
Good suggestions by Louie. Here is another. If you happen to have iCloud Photo Library turned on on both your iOS device and your Mac, all of your photos and videos will be synced to your Mac’s Photos app.  From there you can “export” any selection you wish to hard drive, switch to LR, import that folder and perform the “move” command like Louie suggests. Alternatively, you can copy them to your library and apply file/folder actions like date stamped folders.
Many here use the LR CC iOS app sync feature which gets your iPhone photos into LR automatically. Downside of that approach is that when you need to delete photos off your iOS device you must delete them twice.

choices choices...


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## dfkotz

Thanks all!

@victoria, I have not been able to reproduce the problem recently but will watch Activity Monitor next time, to see what I can learn.

@Selwin, I do not have SoundFlower installed.

@Louie, I appreciate the tips.  I'd like to avoid use of another app like PhotoSync, but will definitely consider it.

@Selwin, I do not use iCloud Photo Library because I do not like my phone auto-uploading photos to the cloud.  Too often I am in a situation with weak connectivity, or expensive connectivity, and don't like to have my phone doing big uploads in the background.  (Especially since I do not always want to keep all my photos or videos - many are just temporary and get discarded the same day.)  I'm just starting to use the LR Mobile app on my phone, but am skeptical - for the same reason, I dislike automatic/background cloud-sync features.

I am also not happy that the LR-mobile photos automatically appear in LR, without going through the Import dialog, and thus do not have any of my standard import presets applied.  (File renaming, Develop presets, Metadata presets, Keywords, etc.) 

The other path I've used is AirDrop.  For a small number of photos, this works pretty well - like Louie's PhotoSync approach, I just AirDrop them to the Mac, then import them to LR.  

Anyway, I'll let you all know if this problem happens again and I find more information.


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## Selwin

Hello all,
After lots of LR updates on from LR6 to now Classic CC and numerous OSX -> MacOS and dot releases I still have the same issue, with three iPhone incarnations.
#1: There are no photos to import, when clearly there are and disconnecting / reconnecting iPhone lightning cable does help (sometimes restarting LR or Mac is necessary)
#2: The following files were not imported because they could not be read or the destination folder is not writable

Basically, using my phone as a camera is becoming such a nuisance when importing is due that I am looking for a shirt pocket P&S. But I have my phone with me always so I would really like to make this work.
Issues happen as from iPhone 5s, then 6splus now 8plus. iOS 9, 10, 11 and now 12.1.3 (fully updated), MacOS El Capitan through Mojave, now 10.14.2. Classic CC version 8.1. Oh I almost forgot: the issue appears on three different macs with different OS versions too.

I searched these forums as well as others and I found quite a lot of reports of similar issues, however none of them result in a fix. All I read is the usual "did you upgrade to the latest version" and such. After so many years of issues I kinda expected to find a thread (or some) containing detailed descriptions of the issues and the fixes. Now that I don't find that, I am almost starting to think it could be hardware related, even though as I said above the same issues appear on different pieces of hardware and software.

My workaround is this:
1. Try to import part of the photos and videos and delete all successfully imported ones from the iPhone. This is trial and error and very tedious as LR hangs whenever I stumble across photos or videos that refuse to import so I need to restart everything.
2. Isolate the troublesome photos and videos and copy them over directly from the MacOS photos app, by using the "show contents" command when right clicking the photo library in Finder.

To be complete I shoot photos and videos using the proprietary photos app in iOS, as well as a photo app called Halide, which is able to shoot RAW photos. Before anyone picks up from this piece of info: the troublesome photos and videos are always .JPG and .MOV, never the RAWs. In fact the halide RAWs are the ones I can start off with without issues.

So I apologise for the long post but I wanted the issue description and further info to be complete. I hope someone can point me to a lead of interest.

Thanks!


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## Oliver Vornberger

Jim Wilde said:


> Take picture/video.
> Wait a minute or two and picture/video appears in Lightroom (in the appropriate dated sub-folder and in my designated workflow collection).



Jim, that was my setup too. So all my photos from my iPhone show up in my desktop and also in my iPad (which is running the LR mobile App too). However, on all three devices, the pictures are shown twice ! Any idea ?


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## Jim Wilde

Do you store your images in Apple's iCloud as well as in LR?


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## Oliver Vornberger

Ah ! Good point. That is the reason. Thanks a lot.


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## spikey_dave

LouieSherwin said:


> Hi @dfkotz,
> 
> I gave up a long time ago trying to import directly from my iPhones into Lightroom. It just seemed to be one problem after another. I am also the family photo archivist. So I am regularly pulling images and videos from both my and my wife's iPhones and importing them into my Lightroom catalog.
> 
> The solution that I use is the PhotoSync app that runs on IOS and my Mac. On the IOS side it keeps track of everything that it has transferred so only transfers the new images and videos. It is a two step process similar to image transfer but much easier implement. I simply start the app on either iPhone or iPad and tell it to transfer all the new images.
> 
> You have a user defined folder structure on the receiving Mac. There some canned presets that you can use or you can define your own. I currently use a custom one that puts the images and videos into separate folders because I treat them a little differently when importing. In the Lightroom Import dialog I use the "Move" option. This cleans out the PhotoSync folders and puts the images into my standard data based Lightroom folder structure.
> 
> The PhotoSync developers have done a very good job of keeping up with all the changes in IOS and MacOS, much better than Adobe. Adobe seems to want us to all move to CC but I'm not about to pay another $9.99 just so my wife can sync her iPhone photos to CC.
> 
> I hope that you my find this useful.
> 
> -louie


Hi Louie,

I came across this thread as I am having issue with imports of iPhone photos. Your reply in this thread stood out as you are 'the family photo archivist' - something we have in common. I am currently importing photos from different sources to create one LR CC Cat. All is going smoothly, until I started importing iPhone images, specifically those that have live 3s vids. 

I want to stay out of apple photos as have a paid cloud service (OneDrive) that has many work files. My iPhone files are currently stored here and I want to catalogue them in LR CC and move them onto an external hard drive with all my other photos.

Specs - iMac late 2015 Big Sur 11.5.2
Currently importing from an old iPhone 6s
Import settings - copy, treat jpegs as separate files - I change filename and use YYYY/YYYY-MM-DD

After importing one iOS photo I seem to get 3 files??? - two identical Jpegs and one mov 3s. Has this ever happened to you?
Do you have any ideas, tips you'd be kind enough to share?

Thank you 

Dave


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## LouieSherwin

spikey_dave said:


> After importing one iOS photo I seem to get 3 files??? - two identical Jpegs and one mov 3s. Has this ever happened to you?
> Do you have any ideas, tips you'd be kind enough to share?


Sounds like these are Apple "live photos", which are I believe are exactly what you are describing, an image and a very short video. The IOS ecosystem treats them as one item whereas everybody else sees them as multiple parts.

If you view them in the Photos app they look like an image with a very short imbedded movement clip I don't think that LR understands them.

-louie


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