1. Connect iPhone#

  • Plug in your iPhone using a USB or USB-C to Lightning cable.
  • Unlock your phone and tap “Trust This Computer” if prompted.

(Add image: iPhone connected to Mac with “Trust This Computer” prompt)

2. Open Image Capture#

  • On your Mac, press Cmd + Space → type Image Capture → press Enter.
  • In the left sidebar, click your iPhone under “Devices”.

(Add image: Image Capture window showing iPhone under Devices)

3. Choose Destination Folder#

  • At the bottom of Image Capture, locate the “Import To:” dropdown.
  • Click “Other…” and navigate to your external HDD.
  • Create a new folder for today’s backup, for example:

/Volumes/YourHDD/Backups/iPhone Backup 18-10-25

(Add image: Image Capture import destination dropdown pointing to external HDD)

4. Sort & Select Only New Photos#

Image Capture displays all media with thumbnails and dates.

Sort by Date#

  • Click the “Date” column header to sort from oldest → newest.
  • Scroll until you reach the first date after your last backup (e.g., 11 Oct 2024).
  • Select all photos from that point onward.
  • Click Import (or Import All if all photos are new).

5. Wait for Transfer to Complete#

Image Capture transfers the original files directly from your iPhone.

  • File types include .HEIC, .MOV, .JPG, etc.
  • No compression
  • No metadata loss

(Add image: Image Capture showing transfer progress bar)

6. List File Types in Folder (Optional)#

Use this Bash command to list all unique file extensions in the current folder (recursively):


find . -type f -name '_._' | sed -n 's/.*.//p' | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]' | sort -u

Explanation:

  • find . -type f -name '*.*' → Finds all files containing a dot in their name.
  • sed -n 's/.*\.//p' → Extracts text after the last dot (the extension).
  • tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]' → Converts extensions to lowercase.
  • sort -u → Sorts and removes duplicates.

Example output:


heic  
jpg  
mov  
mp4

7. Organize by Date Automatically (Optional)#

To organize photos into subfolders based on their original capture date:

  1. Install ExifTool (if you don’t already have it):
brew install exiftool
  1. Run this command:
exiftool '-Directory<CreateDate' -d "%Y-%m-%d" /Volumes/YourHDD/iPhone\ Backup\ 18-10-25

Explanation:

  • '-Directory<CreateDate' → Moves files into directories based on their creation date.
  • -d "%Y-%m-%d" → Formats folders by date (e.g., 2025-10-18).
  • This results in a structure like:
2025-10-18/IMG_1234.HEIC  
2025-10-19/IMG_5678.JPG