The smartphone follows us wherever we go and often becomes the only device we use to take photographs of our vacation or trip. Once you get home, it might be a good idea to move all the photos taken on our Mac, so that we can catalog them better, edit them with some photo editing programs or simply keep them safe (also freeing up space from the smartphone). If we are a beginner with Mac, we may find it difficult to quickly transfer all the photos and images you want from your smartphone; for this reason we decided to make this complete guide, in which we will show you how to import photos and images from smartphone to Mac both in case we have an Android phone and in case we have an iPhone.
Import photos from Android smartphones to Mac
Below we have entered all the methods that we can use to connect a smartphone with Android operating system to the Mac, so as to transfer all photos and images for free.
Android File Transfer
If we have an Android smartphone and want to transfer photos and images via cable, we recommend downloading the Android File Transfer application on the Mac.
To use it, all we have to do is download the DMG installer on our Mac, open it and drag the executable file contained within it into the Applications folder of the Finder. Now that the program is ready, let's connect the smartphone via USB cable, make sure it is connected in MTP mode ( Multimedia Device (MTP) ), then open the Android File Transfer program, which will show all the folders contained in the foreground our Android device.
To be able to transfer photos to the Mac, simply copy the DCIM or Pictures folder, saving it in a folder of your choice in the Finder.
Google Photos
If we want to automatically synchronize the photos and images on our Android smartphone, we can use Google Photos and the Mac Backup and Sync program.
All we have to do is start the Google Photos app on our Android smartphone and start synchronizing the photos, as also described in our article on the Google Photos App with unlimited backup from Android, iPhone and PC .
Now that the synchronization is active, we download the Backup and Sync program on our Mac, log in with the same Google account used on the Android smartphone and, in the Google Drive section, make sure that the tick on Synchronize My drive on this is activated computer then click OK .
The synchronization of the folders will start, including Google Photos, containing all the shots that we made with the smartphone; for synchronization to be effective, simply connect the phone to Wi-Fi, after which synchronization will be automatic.
AirDroid (wireless)
We want to transfer photos and images without using the USB cable "> AirDroid.
After installing the app on our smartphone, we open Safari on our Mac and visit the AirDroid Web page. A QR code will be shown, which we can scan directly from the app: in a few seconds the devices will communicate with each other via the Wi network -Fi in use, so you can access the folders on the Android device and copy images and photos to the Mac. The only requirement is that both the phone and the Mac are connected to the same Wi-Fi network, so as to make the process still faster (the file transfer speed will obviously depend on the speed of our wireless network).
If we are looking for alternatives to AirDroid, we recommend you read our guide on Programs to manage Android from PC and transfer data (in wifi or USB) .
Import photos from iPhone to Mac
After seeing how to transfer images and photos from Android to Mac, we will show you in this part of the guide how to import photos from an iPhone to a Mac; being both Apple products, transferring files is very simple.Photos app
On iPhone we can import photos directly into the Mac Photos app.
To take advantage of this application, connect the iPhone via USB cable to the Mac and wait just a few minutes to open the Photos app. If nothing happens, click on the Photos icon from the Dock bar and go to the application's Import tab.
All the photos in the iPhone memory will appear; to import them on our Mac, click on the button Import all new photos and wait for the end of the procedure. If you intend to transfer only a few photos, we select those to be imported by holding down the CMD key on the keyboard, selecting the individual photos and finally clicking on the Import selected button.
ICloud photo streaming
If we want to automatically synchronize the photos taken with the smartphone, so as to see them immediately on the Mac. To activate this function on our iPhone, we open the Settings app, click on the top of our Apple ID, select the iCloud menu and finally tap on Photos .
From this menu, make sure that the Upload to my photo streaming item is active. Thanks to these two items, photos taken with the iPhone will be viewable from the Mac Photos app without using the cable and without connecting the smartphone to the same network as the computer. To view these photos we open the Photos app on the Mac, go to the Photos -> Preferences menu, select the iCloud tab and put the check mark next to the My photo streaming item.
The peculiarity of this function is that not all photos in the cloud will be synchronized, but only recent shots (last 30 days), it will be up to us to choose which ones to save on the Mac and which ones to ignore (so as to save synchronization space on the cloud) .
ICloud Photo Library
If instead we want to physically synchronize all the photos and images on iCloud inside the Mac, we will have to activate the iCloud Photos library. So let's go to the iPhone, open the Settings app, click on our Apple ID at the top, press the iCloud menu, let's tap on Photos and make sure that iCloud Photos is active.
The photos will be automatically uploaded to iCloud and will be accessible, without having to touch anything, even from the Photos app of our Mac. In the event that the photos of the cloud do not appear on our Mac, go to the Preferences menu of the application, select the iCloud tab and check that iCloud Photo Library is activated.
To learn more about iCloud and synchronization, we invite you to read our guide How to use iCloud on Windows, Mac, iPhone and iPad .
Conclusions
The Mac is certainly one of the best computers that we can use and, as we have seen, we can use it to store all the photos and images on our smartphone without problems, be it an Android or an iPhone (with the latter obviously benefiting, since it's an Apple product).We want to synchronize the photos of our smartphones also on a PC with Windows 10 "> Synchronize music and photos on iPhone and Android from Windows 10, so that we can synchronize the images on any PC we use.
