If you’re accustomed to using iCloud to keep your photos synced between your iPhone, Mac, or even Windows PC, you may not be familiar with the process of transferring pictures off of the iPhone without using iCloud.
This tutorial will walk through the steps required to get pictures from your iPhone to your computer, without using iCloud.
How to Transfer Pictures from iPhone Without iCloud to Mac
This process will copy the photos from iPhone to the Mac, without using iCloud, and instead rely on the bundled Image Capture application to complete the transfer:
- Connect the iPhone to the Mac with a USB cable
- Choose “Allow” when requested to have access to the USB device, this is your iPhone
- Open the “Image Capture” application, from the /Applications folder, or by hitting Command+Spacebar to bring up Spotlight and typing “Image Capture” and hitting return
- Select your iPhone from the left side menu in Image Capture
- Optionally, choose a specific destination on the Mac by clicking on the ‘Import to’ dropdown menu, or accept the Pictures folder default
- To transfer all the photos from iPhone, click the “Download All” button in the bottom right corner
- To copy select photos from iPhone to Mac, select each picture and choose “Download” in the bottom right corner
USB file transfer for photos is relatively fast, but depending on the number of photos and/or length of videos you’re copying, it may take a few minutes or longer.
Using Image Capture is one of the simplest and most direct ways to copy photos from an iPhone without using iCloud, but you can also use the Photos app (without or with iCloud Photos enabled on the Mac, the app can still manage photos), Preview app, and multiple third party apps too.
If you regularly copy photos from your iPhone to your Mac without using iCloud, which method do you use? Do you have any helpful tips or information you want to share? Just leave a comment and join the conversation.
