How do I transfer 300GB+ photos from iPhone to external drive on MacBook Pro?

One option might be to create a second Photos Library on the external SSD to use for archiving the photos.

You can create Photos Libraries and select which one you want to work with by holding down the Option key when you launch Photos and using the controls in the dialog that comes up. Some points to keep in mind:

• You can only have one system Photos Library. This is the one that syncs with iCloud if you use iCloud Photos. All other Photos Libraries are strictly local.
• If you are using iCloud Photos, you would not want to import photos from the iPhone into the main/system Photos Library on the Mac. (You'd be copying them from iCloud Photos to iCloud Photos – putting more photos onto the iPhone and creating duplicates. Not fun.). You would definitely want the import to be to a secondary/local library. So you would want to be certain you had selected the right library before starting an import.
• After you imported the photos to the local library, you would want to back up the drive holding that library before deleting the photos from the iPhone. There is a saying that "all drives fail – it is not a matter of IF, but of WHEN"; and Murphy's Law says the most likely time is when a drive contains valuable data that is not backed up.
• Note that with iCloud Photos, deleting a photo ANYWHERE in the system is taken as a request to delete the photo EVERYWHERE. So you wouldn't delete the same photo manually on every device linked by iCloud.
• When you delete photos from Photos, they go into a Recently Deleted album to give you a chance to change your mind in case you made a mistake. You don't get the space back until you delete the photos from that album – or allow 30 days to pass, in which case they are automatically deleted. Once photos are deleted from the Recently Deleted album, they are permanently deleted, and there is no getting them back from iCloud Photos – so you do want to be sure that they are safe and secure in local libraries and backups outside of iCloud Photos before you delete them.

Create additional photo libraries in Photos on Mac - Apple Support

Transfer photos and videos from your iPhone or iPad to your Mac or PC - Apple Support

One drawback of this approach is that Apple does not provide tools to work with two Photos Libraries at one time – so if you want to move photos between different libraries later, that can be more of a pain than it needs to be.

Image Capture is the built-in application on macOS designed to facilitate the transfer of photos and videos from various devices to your Mac. Whether you're using a digital camera, an iPhone, an iPad, a scanner, or another imaging device, Image Capture provides a straightforward way to import your media without necessarily using the Photos app. Additionally, it allows you to manage your connected devices and perform tasks like scanning documents.

How to transfer photos from iPhone to external SSD on Mac:

1. Connect the iPhone to Mac using the appropriate USB cable.
2. Open a Finder window. Navigate to the Applications folder. Locate and double-click on Image Capture.
3. Once Image Capture is open, look for your connected device in the Devices or Shared section located on the left sidebar.
4. At the bottom of the Image Capture window, you'll find the Import To dropdown menu.
5. Select your preferred destination. If you want to create a new folder, choose Other and navigate to your desired location, or select New Folder if available.
6. After selecting the desired photos, click the Import button to transfer them individually. To import all selected photos at once, click the Import All button.

Image Capture is a straightforward and efficient tool for importing photos and managing media from various devices to your Mac. Its simplicity and flexibility make it an excellent choice for users who prefer not to use more complex applications like Photos or third-party software. By following the steps outlined above, you can easily transfer your cherished memories to external hard drive or SSD on Mac for safekeeping, editing, or sharing.

Transferring photos from iPhone to an external SSD on Mac can be a bit of a journey, one of the major annoyances can be when you’re halfway through transferring files, and your connection drops or your iPhone goes to sleep. Seriously, nothing is worse than having to restart the transfer. To avoid this:

• Keep your iPhone awake: Set it to not go to sleep during the transfer by going to Settings > Display & Brightness > Auto-Lock and select a longer time or Never while you’re transferring.
• Stable Connection: Use a good quality USB cable. Those cheap cables can be flaky, and you don’t want to risk that halfway through.

Make sure your external SSD is formatted correctly for Mac. The best formats are APFS or exFAT. If it’s formatted as NTFS (which is common for Windows), your Mac will have read but not write access to it. So:

• Head over to Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility), and check how your SSD is formatted. If it’s NTFS, you’ll need to reformat it (which erases everything on it) to something like exFAT or APFS.

Alert7878 wrote:

My iPhone free space is only 10 GB left and I need to backup my phones (more than 300GB) to an external drive. I thought this was a simple task but it turned out more complicated as there are more than 7000+ files to be copied.

In addition, my MacBook Pro has only 256GB SSD so backing up the photos to an external SSD is the best choice for me now! I tried doing this with the Photos app and don't find an option.

My question is: what is the most reliable and fastest way to transfer photos from iPhone to external SSD on Mac? I also tested on a PC but it took 30 minutes and only 1% of the files were copied to external drive. And how much time it takes for such a large chunk?

Take a look at the app imazing

iMazing | iPhone, iPad & iPod Manager for Mac & PC

One drawback of the Image Capture app is that it might quit unexpectedly when you are trying to transfer a large amount of photos to external hard drive on Mac. You'd best try with a small amount or use alternative apps to do this. While Image Capture is a powerful tool for importing photos, macOS offers other applications that might better suit your needs:

Photos App: Automatically organizes and backs up your photos, offers editing tools, and integrates with iCloud.

Preview App: Useful for viewing and performing basic edits on images and PDFs.

Third-Party Software: Applications like Adobe Lightroom or Capture One offer advanced photo management and editing features.

P.S. the album name will be missing after import if you use Image Capture app to copy photos from iPhone to external drive.

While Image Capture does a decent job at transferring photos from iPhone to external SSD on Mac, it lacks robust file management features. If you're looking for something that lets you organize, tag, or edit the images during the transfer, you’re out of luck. If you’re trying to transfer multiple photos and you want to rename or resize them before moving them over, Image Capture doesn’t offer those options. You’ll have to do all that manually afterward, which can be a hassle if you have lots of photos.

Sometimes, Image Capture can be a little temperamental. I’ve had instances where it would freeze up when transferring large batches or after being open for a while. It’s not the worst thing, but it can be annoying if you’re in a hurry.

Here is the latest guide about transferring large amount of photos to external drive:

The key is using a fast external SSD instead of slow hard drive. Also, it is better to format the external ssd to AFPS. It takes about one hour to copy 150+ GB photos in my case.

[Edited by Moderator]