Importing from iPhone, which is optimising Photos storage, into LrC

[iwaddo]

Lightroom Version Number

15.2

Operating System

1. macOS 26 Tahoe

For a longtime I've been importing images from our iPhones into my catalog, they go onto an old and slow external drive. The ones I want to include from a trip I move into the folder with my big camera images on my internal drive. My iPhone is optimising photos.

Recently, I noticed that LrC is limited to seeing 502 images & Lr is limited to seeing 503 images, for both to be limited cannot be a coincidence. I've even tried a new empty catalog and the result is the same.

There are about 6,000 images on my iPhone.

If I try to import from my iPad which is not optimising Photos storage LrC & Lr can see all the images.

I know this topic has been discussed several times but I've noticed a recent change and was wondering if anyone else has seen the same.

Thank you for your help.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Optimize Storage means that the photos are offloaded to iCloud, and are replaced on the device by a link to the online photo. Lightroom cannot deal with that.

 

[iwaddo]

Optimize Storage means that the photos are offloaded to iCloud, and are replaced on the device by a link to the online photo. Lightroom cannot deal with that.

I agree but It has always offered me the full 6000 images until now, so I was wondering what has changed?

 

[Johan Elzenga]

I agree but It has always offered me the full 6000 images until now, so I was wondering what has changed?

Probably the free space on your phone. This is an automatic feature, that offloads images if and when needed.

 

[clee01l]

Check your iPhone storage .

If you have 6000 photos on your phone the Photos bar should probably take up a considerable foot print. As you can see from my example, it barely registers on my phone.

 

[Victoria Bampton]

You could work around it a different way... open Photos app on your Mac, select the photos you want, export them as original format to a folder on your hard drive that can then be imported into LR. That saves your phone having to download them from the cloud again too.

 

[camner]

You could work around it a different way... open Photos app on your Mac, select the photos you want, export them as original format to a folder on your hard drive that can then be imported into LR. That saves your phone having to download them from the cloud again too.

That’s exactly what I’ve been doing for years. It really doesn’t really take much time.

 

[iwaddo]

You could work around it a different way... open Photos app on your Mac, select the photos you want, export them as original format to a folder on your hard drive that can then be imported into LR. That saves your phone having to download them from the cloud again too.

Thank you, I’ll give that a try.

 

[iwaddo]

I exported all the images from Photos on my Mac, it really took no time at all, less than two minutes.

When I try to import them into LrC it is not finding the duplicates. A little investigation showed that the exported files have a 'proper' file name yet when I look at the same images in LrC import from my iPad they appear to have a different name. Yet, when I look at the 'info' for the image on my iPad the full file name is there.

As an example, the exported image is IDG_20260224_123524_242.jpg yet looking at the image as it would import from my iPad it is MSPR7608.jpg but when I click 'info' in Photos on my iPad I can see the same filename. There is clearly some Apple wizardry going on.

Exporting the images to disc works for my Images but not for my wife's images who does not use our Mac and therefore I'd need to continue importing from a device.

I'm not that bothered about the filenames, I just need consistency.

Thank you for your help but this is clearly not an LrC issue.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Are you sure you have not imported previews rather than original images? Such long file names often indicate previews.

 

[iwaddo]

There are two images IDG_20260224_123524_242.JPG & IDG_20260224_123524_242.DNG, they were taken with the Project Indigo app and exported from Photos on my Mac as 'unmodified originals', the JPG is 3.7mb and the DNG 17mb. These seem to be the originals.

When I look at the same two images in the LrC import dialogue, importing from my iPad which is set to Download and Keep Originals they appear as MSPR7608.JPG & KSJY9172.DNG, these are the names LrC imports them as. As I mention above if I look at these images in Photos on my iPad & iPhone I can see the full file names. It seems LrC is not seeing or iOS is not showing the full filename.

I only noticed this discrepancy when switching from importing to LrC directly from a device to exporting unmodified originals on my Mac and using them as the basis for the import.

It seems to be something to do with what took the images. Images taken directly with the iOS default camera seem to appear in LrC import with proper filenames, like IMG_9999.JPG, whereas images taken with Project indigo or even within WhatsApp have more of a coded than sequentially generated filename. In each case these 'coded' filenames that appear in the LrC import dialogue are not the filenames used when exporting unmodified originals.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Strange. I did a quick test and a photo taken with Project Indigo does indeed get that long 'IDG-whatever' name. But when I export it on the iPhone as Unmodified Original to iCloud Drive, then that name remains the same and Lightroom Classic sees that same name. Maybe Apple Photos changes that name.

I'm not sure I understand what you iPad has to do with this. You were talking about importing from your iPhone, and I assume that is where you have Project Indigo. Victoria suggested exporting the images from Apple Photos on the Mac, so where does the iPad fit in this workflow?

 

[iwaddo]

Sorry if I have confused things. I have always imported directly from one of my Apple devices, I've been doing it for years.

• Using my iPad which is not optimising storage the images all seem to import OK (ignore the filenames for now).
• Using my wife's iPad which is optimising storage, now it is low on memory, I noticed what seemed like a change to what LrC import could see on the device. See original question above.

Victoria suggested exporting the unmodified originals from Photos on my Mac and importing the images into LrC. This works perfectly, but this is where the different filename question arose.

Does that make things any clearer?

 

[Johan Elzenga]

It does. Like I said, this suggests that Apple Photos changes the original file name given by Project Indigo. Maybe it does that when it offloads the images to the cloud. I can’t check that because I don’t use cloud sync for Apple Photos. What I do see however is that the file name does not change if I export the Project Indigo file directly from Photos on my iPhone to a folder on iCloud Drive, wait for that folder to sync to my Mac, and then import the file from there into Lightroom Classic.

 

[iwaddo]

My query is not limited to Project Indigo.

Currently there are 0 of 6,500 images to import from my iPad into LrC.

However, importing from an export of unmodified originals on my Mac there are 4,832 images to import. This is because the filenames are different.

As an example,

• a file imported from my iPad into LrC has a filename of FODZ6290.JPG,
• the same file exported as an unmodified original on my Mac has a filename of 95b90f79-c490-4cf8-864c-8f3f5286e1d8.jpg. Everything about the two images looks to be the same except the filename.
• Exporting the same image to a folder from iPad Photos the filename is 95b90f79-c490-4cf8-864c-8f3f5286e1d8.JPG.
• Importing the same file to LrC from my iPhone the filename is FODZ6290.JPG
• Exporting the same image to a folder from iPhone Photos the filename is 95b90f79-c490-4cf8-864c-8f3f5286e1d8.JPG.

This is an image saved to my camera roll that I have received by WhatsApp.

The Apple ecosystem seems to consistently name the file 95b90f79-c490-4cf8-864c-8f3f5286e1d8.JPG yet when imported to LrC directly from an Apple device the filename is consistently FODZ6290.JPG.

I'm not sure any of this really matters but it has now got me curious.

 

[iwaddo]

My query is not limited to Project Indigo.

Currently there are 0 of 6,500 images to import from my iPad into LrC.

However, importing from an export of unmodified originals on my Mac there are 4,832 images to import. This is because the filenames are different.

As an example,

• a file imported from my iPad into LrC has a filename of FODZ6290.JPG,
• the same file exported as an unmodified original on my Mac has a filename of 95b90f79-c490-4cf8-864c-8f3f5286e1d8.jpg. Everything about the two images looks to be the same except the filename.
• Exporting the same image to a folder from iPad Photos the filename is 95b90f79-c490-4cf8-864c-8f3f5286e1d8.JPG.
• Importing the same file to LrC from my iPhone the filename is FODZ6290.JPG
• Exporting the same image to a folder from iPhone Photos the filename is 95b90f79-c490-4cf8-864c-8f3f5286e1d8.JPG.

This is an image saved to my camera roll that I have received by WhatsApp.

The Apple ecosystem seems to consistently name the file 95b90f79-c490-4cf8-864c-8f3f5286e1d8.JPG yet when imported to LrC directly from an Apple device the filename is consistently FODZ6290.JPG.

I'm not sure any of this really matters but it has now got me curious.

If I import the same image from the Camera Roll into LrM on my iPad it has the long filename (95b90f79-c490-4cf8-864c-8f3f5286e1d8.JPG), so my question is why does LrC import the image with a different filename (FODZ6290.JPG)?

Feels like some sort of bug or error to me.

 

[clee01l]

If I import the same image from the Camera Roll into LrM on my iPad it has the long filename (95b90f79-c490-4cf8-864c-8f3f5286e1d8.JPG), so my question is why does LrC import the image with a different filename (FODZ6290.JPG)?

Feels like some sort of bug or error to me.

I don't think it is a bug. I've occasionally seen these long GUID (Globally Unique IDentifier) file names. I think they are generated by Apple probably in association with the iCloud storing of files.

If you take a photo on your iPhone it may be assigned "IMG1234.jpg" and the number sufix increments and eventually repeats after 9999. If you take another photo on your iPad, it will also be assigned "IMGnnnn.jpg" So you have non unique file names being stored in the Apple iCloud. The GUID (Globally Unique IDentifier) file names let Apple iCloud store them uniquely. So depending upon where the image originates before being imported into another image management system, it may arrive with a GUID (Globally Unique IDentifier) file name.

 

[Gnits]

I have been frustrated for years trying to send images as attachments using the native IOS mail app. No matter what I do...it seems to embed the image as an object within the email page and I lose the original file name.

My current solution (suggested by Cletus) was to us the Spark App. As I did not want an overload of mail subscription services and did not want to change my current Exchange server based email service .. I was not keen .... But sending emails as attachments retaining their original file name is vip, I have recently subscribed to Spark for a year and will test this more fully over the next few months.

I think Cletus is on the correct track ... ie the need to maintain unique file id's in Apple Cloud.

I do not understand this ecosystem well enough to give advice ... but I would recommend you review your overall flow of images if you wish to retain file names from (or passing thru) IOS devices.