How to fix Image Capture not showing all iPhone or iPad photos

Find out what to do if you’re trying to import pictures and videos from your iOS device to your Mac via a USB cable, but the Apple Image Capture app isn’t showing all the items.

First off, check how many images and videos you have on your iPhone or iPad by going to iOS Settings > General > About. You can also open the Photos app, go to the Collections tab, and tap your profile icon to see the number of photos and videos on your device.

After you connect your iPhone or iPad to Mac, the Image Capture app will also display the number of pictures it has loaded at the top of the window.

In many cases, the exact number of media on your iOS device and the count in Image Capture may not match, but they should be very close. If several dozen or hundreds of iOS images are missing from Image Capture, go through the solutions below.

Wait for a while if you’ve thousands of photos and videos

If you’ve a massive photo library, it may take a while for all of them to load. So, just wait a couple of minutes max.

Scroll to the top of the Image Capture window

If everything isn’t yet showing, simply scroll to the top of the Image Capture app and check if the app reads new media on the device and shows them here.

Make sure your iCloud Photos are downloaded

If you use iCloud Photos on your iPhone or iPad, chances are the full-resolution pictures are stored in iCloud, while smaller, space-optimized versions of your media are saved on the device to take up less space.

The Image Capture app may not always read and show these smaller versions of your photos. So, go to iPhone or iPad Settings > iCloud > Photos and select Download and Keep Originals. Then, wait for full-resolution images to download locally to the device (it can take a long time). Once it’s done, retry using Image Capture.

Unlock and reconnect your iPhone or iPad

With your iOS device connected to Mac and showing in Image Capture, open the Camera on your iPhone or iPad and take a picture. If everything is working correctly, the new image should appear immediately in Image Capture. If it doesn’t, unplug your iPhone or iPad from Mac and plug it back in. Do this a couple of times if needed.

Quit all Mac apps and retry

Save your work in all other open Mac apps and quit them all, including Image Capture. Then, reopen just the Image Capture app and check if it loads all media from the connected iPhone or iPad.

Restart your computer and iOS device

If quitting apps didn’t help, reboot both devices and retry.

Uninstall antivirus, cleaners, or other recently downloaded apps

A few people on the Apple Community forum have reported that uninstalling Bitdefender, Malwarebytes, and other antivirus or cleaner apps can help. Additionally, if the problem started happening recently, delete any new apps you have installed. If Image Capture works fine, the problem could well be with these antivirus programs or newly downloaded apps in question.

Update to the latest version of macOS Tahoe

Several users reported this issue in macOS Sequoia and initial builds of macOS Tahoe 26. Go to System Settings > General > Software Update and install the newest version of macOS available for your Mac.

Delete Image Capture system files

Follow these steps if the problem still continues.

1. Open Finder, click Go > Go to Folder from the top menu bar, enter ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Image_Capture.plist and press the enter key.
2. Delete the two Image Capture plist files you see here.
3. Restart your Mac.
4. Connect iPhone or iPad to Mac and open Image Capture. Hopefully, all your images from your iOS device should appear here.

Use Safe Mode

Boot your computer in Safe Mode and then retry using Image Capture. If it works fine, then one of the installed or login apps may be the reason. And in case the problem continues, consider reinstalling macOS (it won’t delete personal data).

Which of the above solutions worked for you? Or did something else do the trick? Mention it in the comments below.

Also, check out: How to stop Photos or Image Capture from launching when you connect a device to Mac

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2025/12/04/fix-mac-image-capture-not-showing-all-ios-photos/