Backing up iPhone photos should not take four hours

My wife’s 512 GB iPhone ran out of space. With no room left, the next iOS update couldn’t install. We couldn’t just start deleting photos: there were years of them, and I wanted a separate copy first.

This sounded like a 20-minute job.

Four hours later, I had used two Windows 11 PCs, a Mac, an NTFS drive, an old 1 TB SSD, several adapters, Windows Disk Management, Ubuntu, and finally an app called Image Capture. At several points, every individual component worked. They just refused to work in the same combination.

It shouldn’t be this hard. It really shouldn’t.

iCloud Photos with Optimize Storage could have solved the immediate phone-space problem and avoided much of this adventure. It still wasn’t the independent copy I wanted: iCloud Photos is a synchronized library, so deletions propagate across devices, and Apple recommends keeping separate backup copies. The plan large enough for this library was also more recurring cost than I wanted to add. I already had computers and external drives. How difficult could it be?

That question aged badly.

Windows could see the phone, but not the photos

I started with my wife’s Windows 11 Home PC. Windows detected the iPhone and immediately opened Microsoft Photos. Microsoft Photos, apparently satisfied that it had participated, displayed none of the phone’s photos.

File Explorer showed the iPhone, but Internal Storage and the DCIM folder were missing. The phone was visible; its storage was not.

I installed Apple Devices, Apple’s current Windows app for managing an iPhone. It also recognized the phone, but it didn’t give me the photo-export path I needed. Then I connected the iPhone to my Windows 11 Pro PC and got exactly the same result.

At least the failure was reproducible.

The official Windows import instructions start with a data-capable cable, an unlocked iPhone, and the Trust This Computer prompt. Those are the right first checks if Windows can’t see your photos. I didn’t isolate which part of the Windows connection failed; all I could establish was that both PCs recognized the phone but exposed no photo storage.

There was also a smaller irritation: Microsoft Photos launched every time I connected the phone, just to remind me that it still couldn’t see anything. I turned off AutoPlay under Settings → Bluetooth & devices → AutoPlay, but it made no difference on the Windows 11 Home PC: Photos still opened whenever I connected the iPhone. The same problem did not happen on my Windows 11 Pro PC. I still don’t know what triggered the difference.

The Mac solved one problem and introduced the next one

I connected the iPhone to my Mac. The phone appeared. The photos appeared. I briefly experienced hope.

Apple naturally steers you toward the Photos app. My Mac had only about 50 GB free, though, so importing a library from a nearly full 512 GB phone to its internal storage was not going to happen.

I later learned that Photos can use a library stored on an external drive. Apple requires that drive to be formatted as APFS or Mac OS Extended, as described in its guide to moving a Photos library to external storage. That works for a Mac-centered library, but I wanted ordinary files on a drive that I could also read and write from Windows.

For that job, macOS has a separate built-in app called Image Capture. It can import photos and videos from an iPhone directly into a folder.

The first major barrier was down. I connected my external drive and tried to create a destination folder.

I couldn’t.

Of course the drive was NTFS

The external drive was formatted as NTFS. macOS could read it, but couldn’t write to it without an additional driver. This is normal behavior, not a special punishment created for me personally, although the timing felt suspicious. Apple documents the NTFS limitation, but knowing why I couldn’t create a folder did not create the folder.

Copying everything to the Mac first was still impossible because of the 50 GB of free space. So I followed the timeless advice eventually found in every serious troubleshooting article: I went to the garage.

I found an old 1 TB SSD, now apparently worth its weight in gold, and connected it to the Mac through an external enclosure. The Mac didn’t see it. Maybe the enclosure wasn’t receiving enough power. Maybe the adapter was wrong. My Mac doesn’t have USB-A ports, so this stage also included the traditional game of guessing which USB-C-to-USB-A adapter would cooperate today.

I pulled out an ancient HDD/SSD dock that I bought roughly 15 years ago. This device had survived several generations of computers and looked ready to survive several more.

The Mac still didn’t see the SSD.

Windows, Ubuntu, Windows, Mac

Back to Windows 11. The SSD didn’t appear in File Explorer, so I opened Disk Management. There it was, carrying several old partitions. Windows let me remove one of them but refused to remove the others.

Naturally, the next step in managing those stubborn partitions was Linux.

I booted Ubuntu, opened GNOME Disks, and removed the remaining partitions. Then I had to choose a filesystem for the disk. For a large drive that needs to move between Windows and macOS, exFAT is the practical common format. Apple lists exFAT as its Windows-compatible option for volumes larger than 32 GB.

My Ubuntu installation didn’t have the exFAT support I needed ready to go. After the previous three hours, installing one more component felt less attractive than moving the cable again. I returned to Windows, created a new partition in Disk Management, and formatted it as exFAT.

Although macOS Disk Utility can also format a disk as exFAT, the advice I found favored Windows for creating a cross-platform exFAT partition. Since Windows Disk Management could see the SSD, I chose that conservative route and created the volume there.

I reconnected the SSD to the Mac. It appeared. I could create a folder. Image Capture could use that folder as its destination.

Finally, the import started.

Four cable hops across three operating systems to copy files from one device to another. Completely normal consumer experience.

HEIC: the sequel nobody requested

The next compatibility issue was predictable. I expected many photos to arrive as .HEIC files, which normally contain HEIF images, and some videos might be encoded with HEVC.

That isn’t a backup problem by itself. HEIF and HEVC preserve quality while using less space, and keeping the originals is the safest first step. Compatibility is a separate problem, so I would rather finish and verify the copy before converting anything in bulk.

Apple notes that USB imports may be converted to JPEG and H.264 depending on the iPhone’s transfer setting. To prevent conversion during USB import, open Settings → Apps → Photos on the iPhone, scroll down, and select Keep Originals. Apple’s HEIF and HEVC guide also covers manual conversion later.

So yes, mass conversion may still be in my future. Compared with getting the files off the phone, that almost sounds relaxing.

What I would do next time

After four hours, my shortened version of the procedure is:

1. Decide whether you need a restorable computer backup or a browsable photo-and-video archive. They solve different problems.
2. For a restorable computer backup, use Finder on macOS or Apple Devices on Windows. Encrypt it if you need Health, Activity, and Keychain data, and do not lose the password.
3. For ordinary photo and video files, try the official Windows Photos route first: use a data-capable cable, unlock the iPhone, and accept Trust This Computer.
4. If Windows still refuses to expose the library, use Image Capture on a Mac.
5. Prepare the destination drive before connecting the phone. Use exFAT if the archive must be writable from both Windows and macOS; use a Mac format if the drive will hold a Photos library.
6. In Image Capture, choose Import To, leave automatic deletion off, account for any locked Hidden album, and then press Download All.
7. Keep the originals first. Convert HEIC or HEVC copies later only if your other software needs more compatible formats.
8. Open a sample of the copied photos and videos, compare counts where possible while accounting for Live Photo pairs, and make a second copy before deleting anything from the phone.

The last point matters most. One external drive is a copy, but it is not much of a backup plan by itself.

That sent me back to a familiar thought: maybe it was finally time to buy a network-attached storage (NAS) box as a second destination. Then I checked the prices Amazon was showing me for NAS-grade HDDs. Western Digital says AI data centers are increasing demand for high-capacity storage. Whatever was driving the retail prices, the numbers did not look any friendlier.

So, for now, my budget has selected a backup strategy called “Backup and Pray”: “make one copy on a single drive and pray for its continued health.”

To be clear, that is an admission, not advice. A second copy is still the right answer; for now, I am knowingly accepting the risk while my wallet and I negotiate the NAS implementation schedule.

I eventually got the import running. Once the copy is complete and verified, we plan to clean up the iPhone and install its update. Until I add another copy, the SSD will be a single point of failure. I know. The prayer-based strategy has limitations.

I am still not convinced that ordinary people should need Windows, macOS, Linux, four hours, and a device from the archaeological layer of my garage to reach that point.

The industry is going in the wrong direction. Or perhaps it has simply hidden the correct direction behind one more adapter.