# Lightroom CC will not import iPhone photos



## Harmany

I have a brand new MacBook Pro, fresh download of Lightroom CC. I would love to think that LR has progressed so that it can download images from the iPhone.  But no, its even worse than on my 5 year old computer I just got rid of. On my old computer I could download into Image Capture, then import to LR. Pain in the backside, but workable. (iPhone 4&5 downloaded right into LR....good old days .

So, tried Image capture, imported all the images that I needed. opened LR to move the images from the folder to into the catalogue and onto the back up hard drive (where I put all my images--200+K, so I know what I am doing). Also have imported fro years from many different cameras. this should be able to be done in my sleep.

But, LR will not even import any images from those that Image Capture download onto my hard drive. I can see them in the finder window, can see most of them in the import dialogue window, but nothing downloads. This is beyond ridiculous. 

Can anyone help???


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## clee01l

Are these iPhone images JPGs or of the type AAE?   Your LR5 version may not understand the iPhone processed image file type AAE.

FWIW, I have changes the default app (in Image Capture) to LR so that when i connect my iPhone it opens the LR import panel.  When I connect my phone I can import directly into LR.  I no longer have do this, since I have a CC Subscription, I can use LR  Mobile to automatically import through the CC sync process.  I did just test the iPhone connected to the Mac and the import process still works for me.   If you have iPhone JPGs then it should work for you too.   Please tell us in more detail how you are importing into LR.


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## Harmany

Thanks Cletus. I actually have Lightroom CC as noted above. have an iPhone 6s, shoot jpeg and tiff files only. I cannot use the mobile sync since I live in the country and pay for satellite internet, cloud based transfers eat up data. my iPhone tiffs are 24MB files. 

first I connected the phone to the computer, LR recognizes it, opens the import panel. With the new computer, I was able to see about 60-70% of the images as thumbnails. But when I went to download the selected images, nothing happened. LR just sat there with the activity bar for 5-10 minutes until I cancelled the import. Restarted LR in case it was feeling unhappy. imported the images with Image Capture to my computer hard drive. all looked normal. (with old computer LR just said that preview was not available for these images and never imported anything, but I could import through Image Capture).

So, with the images now transferred to the hard drive, and all visible as thumbnails, I opened LR import dialogue. Asked it to move the files to a new location (my external drive that holds pictures) and import. The thumbnails showed up in LR import box (cannot remember if all of them showed, but I think at least 80% did). Hit Import, again, nothing happened, except the bar on the top left said it was importing. 10 minutes later, still no imports. I had just imported a couple hundred files from a Nikon D810, plenty large files, no problems. At that point I gave up and sent this note. I have no idea what to do next. thanks


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## Harmany

oops, updated my profile, that was from years ago.


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## Adele

Somewhat similar problem here.  New iPhone 7, cannot import pictures into LR CC on an Mac running OSX 10.11.6.  Pictures can be imported fine from an iPhone 6.  With iPhone 7, get some import previews, others say no preview available.  Image files are jpg, png and some movies.  Press import, the bar in the main screen moves a small portion of the way across, and then stops.  Nothing happens, nothing imported.  Tried closing and reopening LR, restarting the system, changing cables, nothing works.  It is possible to import the images into the Apple Photos app and then export them to LR, but that is very time consuming.  Any thoughts on a solution?  Have not yet tried Image Capture but would prefer to go straight to LR.  Would an upgrade to Sierra solve the issue?  Many thanks for your thoughts!


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## Sven

Same problem here: iPhone 7 plus, Lightroom CC, macOS Sierra, everything fully up-to-date. Lightroom happily imports photos off of SD cards from my m43 camera, but fails to import from my phone. 

I've got iCloud configured to store photos locally on the phone. There are about 9k photos on there, some of which have previously been imported to Lightroom. When I plug in my phone and start a LR import it slowly populates the grid of thumbnails and hides duplicates. Sometimes some thumbnails aren't shown and I have to try again before it works, but it eventually works, and I select the unimported photos and try to start the job... and then _nothing happens. _The import progress bar immediately moves about halfway but then no further. I've let it sit like this for hours at a time but it makes no difference. I've tried selecting and importing only a single photo, but that doesn't succeed either.


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## LouieSherwin

I gave up on trying to us Lightroom to directly import from my iPhone a long time ago.You might want to take a look at the PhotoSync app. It works over WiFi and and keeps track of which photos are already synced. There are also some new features that work with albums created on the iPhone but I haven't looked at those yet. 

My workflow is to use PhotoSync to get the new images from my iPhone and put them in a transfer folder on my Mac. Then I use Lightroom import with the "Move" option to import and put the images the correct date based folders. This will clean out the transfer folder ready for the next batch.

I do the same for my wife's iPhone. It makes it easy to collect all our images in one location.

-louie


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## rob211

Just tried it myself. Two jpgs off an iPhone 7+. Got to the "importing..." part and then Lr hung and I had to force quit it to get out. On a Mac running latest system software, 10.12.5.

Wonder if it has to do with the new filesystem on the phones? It shouldn't though. But a big barf. I use either Lr Mobile or Image Capture and those seemed to work.


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## Sandro

Harmany said:


> my iPhone tiffs are 24MB files.



Silly question: How are you getting 24MB tiff images from your iPhone? 

I don't snap that many images with my iPhone so I don't import very many. Those few that I do, go through LR Mobile which I have set to only sync over WiFi.


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## rob211

Some iOS camera apps can save in TIFF. Camera+ for example. Some prefer it to JPEG.


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## scottsp

same problem here.  running latest LR CC, in latest El Cap update with latest IOS on iPhone7.  up until a week ago, generally had no problems importing directly from phone. now, no matter how many images I grab 3 to 300, movies, jpegs, live view any or all of the above, it hangs and needs a forced restart.  I can bring them in with image capture and then import, but what a pain!


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## Rob richardson

While LR can't see your iPhone, it can see your HD; so suggest you add two step file transfer process in your import workflow. First transfer photos from iPhone to your Laptop HD, then have LR import them from the HD location. Specifically 
1) Enable Airdrop transfers between your iPhone/Ipad and your MAC Laptop
(How to instantly share files with AirDrop for iPhone or iPad)
2) Go into the iPhone Picture and select the photos to be transferred
3) Select the "send to" icon
4) If you have AirDropped enabled, then your laptop should appear to be selected. 
5) The photos should be copied into the "download" folder
6) go into LR and import the photos from the "download" folder


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## Jim Wilde

Given that you're using the CC subscription, have you considered using LRmobile on your iPhone/iPad to automatically sync any picture added to the Camera Roll (or taken with the LR camera within LRmobile), which will then automatically download into the LR synced catalog on your desktop?


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## rob211

Jim Wilde said:


> Given that you're using the CC subscription, have you considered using LRmobile on your iPhone/iPad to automatically sync any picture added to the Camera Roll (or taken with the LR camera within LRmobile), which will then automatically download into the LR synced catalog on your desktop?



Given that Adobe hasn't deigned to implement LAN synch, Lr Mobile is just too painfully s l o w. I don't know what the OP has done though. Lightroom mobile: I would like to synchronize over LAN instead of internet | Photoshop Family Customer Community

I'd suggest Image Capture, as noted above. Way faster than Airdrop. Lr also takes forever to bring up the previews of the Camera Roll in the Import grid; just awful. But it also depends on whether you wanna get the RAW off your iPhone. To do that Image Capture doesn't work. I use Phoneview and access the app that took the RAW photos (like say Lr Mobile) and copy from there.


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## Jim Wilde

rob211 said:


> Lr Mobile is just too painfully s l o w.



That's too sweeping a generalisation. Would I use LRmobile to try to import 64gb of raw captures from one of my DSLRs? No way, life's too short (but I also wouldn't be looking for any another means of getting those images onto my phone either, but each to their own). But using it to automatically capture pictures taken on the phone is a different matter entirely, and my workflow here is simple: take picture. The next time I open LR on my Desktop those pictures will start downloading (into my standard folder structure) within seconds. 

Of course local LAN sync would be a great addition, but the lack of it doesn't mean that LRmobile can't be used effectively.


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## rob211

Yes, you're right about the generalization. I should have said painfully slow for a large amount of images. I do take quite a few since I use the iPhone camera for RAW on trips, so it affects me. For just casual photos of stuff I want to auto sync I can use the free Photos/iCloud Library solution. It's a way I keep those images out of my Lr workflow. I didn't mean to imply it can't be used effectively, but transferring isn't one of it's strong points. Even edits: Mylio is faster too. And can sync locally over a LAN. While edit syncs aren't voluminous, having them happen almost quickly can be handy at times. I've always wondered why Adobe didn't use their method, since it's so efficient. And at least it can do keywords....


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## SaraCaballera

I have a similar problem. I have an iPhone 5s and until a few months ago, I could download directly into LRCC exactly as if they were on a flash drive. Now nothing happens, and I am very frustrated! All these crazy work-arounds should not be required. Am seriously considering dropping LR and going to some of the other programs.


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## Johan Elzenga

SaraCaballera said:


> I have a similar problem. I have an iPhone 5s and until a few months ago, I could download directly into LRCC exactly as if they were on a flash drive. Now nothing happens, and I am very frustrated! All these crazy work-arounds should not be required. Am seriously considering dropping LR and going to some of the other programs.



Check the settings of your iPhone, especially iCloud Photos. Apple has included a new option in iOS, that will upload the photos to iCloud and delete the originals from the phone if you don't have enough space on the phone. Only a preview remains, so you can still see the photos, but Lightroom can't download them if there is no original.


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## Rob richardson

I note the same issue about directly importing my iPhone photos into my iMac LightRoom environment. My solution was to modify my importing workflow to make use of Apple AirDrop file transfer feature.  It works between any Apple device (i.e. iPhone, iPad, MAC, iMac, etc.), even between Apple devices with different iCloud accounts.  I can't speak to MAC-to-Win10 transfers. You don't even need an Internet connection or even the presence of a wifi hotspot.  See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203106 for how to set it up.  

My iPhone LRCC Import workflow
1) W/in iPhone photo app, review & edit photos
2) setup Source iPhone and target Apple device (i.e. iMAC) for AirDrop by enabling wifi & Bluetooth on both devices
3) W/in Photo app select the photos (and videos) you wish transferred
4) Select bottom left "send to" icon. give the device a second to discover other AirDrop capable devices near it. Target device icon(s) should appear
5) Select the target device Icon to start the transfer. If the target device is not under the same iCloud account, you will have to grant permission for receive the transfer
6) the Photos/videos will be deliver in "Download" folder (iMAC) or in "Camera Roll" in iOS Photo App
7) Now you can use LRCC import to "copy the files" into your LRCC file structure. 

I have noted that all photos edited w/in iPhone Photo App are renamed "Fullrendered.jpeg"; so you will have to use LRCC's import file renaming feature.


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## sdeleng

I had this problem but solved it very very easily.  Open the  camera roll folder on your iPhone *afte*r you get the message no photos found.  Instantly lightroom classic finds them!  Sometimes lightroom does not even see the phone so just disconnect it and re-connect it and it always does eventually.  I have 4 iPhones from 4S to 7plus and the problem persists on each one.  The odd thing is that if you do need to re-connect, lightroomichanges the name on my phone to Apple iPhone.


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## Plu

sdeleng said:


> I had this problem but solved it very very easily.  Open the  camera roll folder on your iPhone *afte*r you get the message no photos found.  Instantly lightroom classic finds them!  Sometimes lightroom does not even see the phone so just disconnect it and re-connect it and it always does eventually.  I have 4 iPhones from 4S to 7plus and the problem persists on each one.  The odd thing is that if you do need to re-connect, lightroomichanges the name on my phone to Apple iPhone.


Thanks a lot! This worked for me too!!


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## chrw

sdeleng said:


> I had this problem but solved it very very easily.  Open the  camera roll folder on your iPhone *afte*r you get the message no photos found.  Instantly lightroom classic finds them!  Sometimes lightroom does not even see the phone so just disconnect it and re-connect it and it always does eventually.  I have 4 iPhones from 4S to 7plus and the problem persists on each one.  The odd thing is that if you do need to re-connect, lightroomichanges the name on my phone to Apple iPhone.



Many thanks, this also worked for me, - strange and simple


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## Ollie

sdeleng said:


> I had this problem but solved it very very easily.  Open the  camera roll folder on your iPhone *afte*r you get the message no photos found.  Instantly lightroom classic finds them!  Sometimes lightroom does not even see the phone so just disconnect it and re-connect it and it always does eventually.  I have 4 iPhones from 4S to 7plus and the problem persists on each one.  The odd thing is that if you do need to re-connect, lightroomichanges the name on my phone to Apple iPhone.


This was the perfect solution for LTR 5.6 and my iPhone 7+.  Thanks for ending what was becoming a very frustrating effort.  But I notice that when the images are imported into LTR many of them, seemingly at random, have a "-3" added after the file name, as if there were three copies of the same image.  But there aren't.  Any idea why this -3 is added?


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## LouieSherwin

Ollie said:


> But I notice that when the images are imported into LTR many of them, seemingly at random, have a "-3" added after the file name, as if there were three copies of the same image. But there aren't. Any idea why this -3 is added?



This should be because you already have two other images with the same name in the folder. 

It also could be another problem. 

Try this. In Grid select All Photos. Then apply a text search using the file name of one of those images  without the “-3” with the criteria “contains”.  

I would expect that you should find one or two images, one with just the base image name and another with a “-2”.  I would also expect them to all be in the same folder. 

-louie


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