Filed under: Hardware, How-tos, Tips and tricks, Odds and ends, TUAW Tips, iPhone
TUAW Tip: Fixing syncing between iPhone and iPhoto '08
Basically, iPhoto '08 and the iPhone don't always play nice -- sometimes, you'll take a bunch of pictures on your iPhone, bring them back to sync up with iPhoto '08, and whoops, iPhoto doesn't see them at all. You can see them on your iPhone, but iPhoto's "Import All" button is greyed out, and they're not showing on your screen (sometimes, I've gotten dotted lines where the pictures are -- I think this all has something to do with a corrupted cache that iPhoto keeps of what's on the iPhone). Fortunately, though it's frustrating, there's an easy fix. Open up Image Capture (you can find it in Spotlight or even Quicksilver if you swing that way) with your iPhone connected, hit the "Devices" menu item, and then "Browse Devices." You'll get a screen just like the one above, with your iPhone's name instead of mine.
Uncheck the "Connected" box, and then recheck it, and boom. Image Capture, and thus iPhoto, will see all of your pictures and happily upload them. Is it voodoo? Sure -- we still don't know why iPhoto loses its place every once in a while (like I said, I'm thinking a corrupted cache somewhere along the line). But it works.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
YodaMac said 7:12PM on 3-11-2009
Huh. I think I've had those "dotted lines" previews before and just downloaded them to iPhoto anyways. They looked okay to me once they were there...
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Rob said 7:27PM on 3-11-2009
Those "dotted lined" photos only happen to me when I take a screenshot and then try to import that screenshot into iPhoto.
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aaron said 7:38PM on 3-11-2009
I just want a trick to NOT have iPhoto pop up everytime I sync or plug in my iPhone...
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Matt said 7:56PM on 3-11-2009
Go to image capture then go into preferences. Select no application when a camera is connected. Of course, this will affect any camera connected but you can just open the application you want when you connect a camera.
Zach said 8:10PM on 3-11-2009
I've had a few problems since upgrading iLife. Most recently I tried to run a slideshow in iChat, but only the very tops of the photos were visible.
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john said 11:55PM on 3-11-2009
Hum... it only happens to me when I plug in the phone when I am logged in as another user, then switch back. From that point on, the only solution is a reboot...
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dan workman said 7:57AM on 3-12-2009
Eureka! That solves that problem. Now, about iPhoto launching each time I connect, AND having to manually launch iTunes (even when the pref is set to sync automatically upon connection)--I'd be a happy camper,.. er,.. iPhoner,.. whatever...
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jim said 6:08PM on 3-12-2009
There's a typo at the end. "Like I said" isn't grammatically correct, it should be "as I said".
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Reine said 3:19AM on 4-07-2009
Thanks a lot, Mike! You just saved my day ^_^
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Bevan said 5:31AM on 5-04-2009
While this didn't work for me, it did point me in the right direction. I disconnected my phone, quite Image Capture and iPhoto, then deleted ~/Library/Caches/iPhoto/ and ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.iPhoto/.'
Then I restarted iPhoto, and reconnected the iPhone, and voila!
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