iPhone Import (USB)
Plug your iPhone or iPad into your Mac with a USB cable and pull originals straight into your library — no iCloud, no Photos.app, no card reader.
macOS only. Device import uses Apple's ImageCaptureCore framework, which exists only on macOS. The button doesn't appear on Windows.
What about cameras? Cameras that expose a PTP mode may also appear here, but most modern cameras mount as USB drives instead — import those with Select Source like any other drive (see Importing).
How It Works
On the Import page, click Import from iPhone — the device becomes the import source, right in the regular Import grid. Plug in and unlock your device; its media catalog appears automatically with the same toolbar, badges, renaming, tags, and collection options as a folder import. Pick a destination folder inside one of your drives, select what you want, and hit Import.
Files transfer directly from the device into the destination folder — there is no staging copy, so nothing extra is written to your system disk and each byte is written exactly once. Each file arrives under a temporary name and is atomically renamed when its transfer completes, so an interrupted transfer can never leave a half-written file that looks real. Renames you set in the grid become the saved filenames. After the transfer, the files are indexed in place: hashed, deduplicated, thumbnailed, and added to your library like any other import.
Your device is only ever read. Nothing is modified or removed from it, and the imported files are independent copies living in your chosen destination — so they back up, sync, and travel like any other media in your library.
Unlocking and Trust
iPhones and iPads keep their media locked away until you unlock them:
- Plug the device in with a USB cable.
- Unlock it with Face ID / Touch ID / passcode.
- The first time on this Mac, tap Trust This Computer on the device.
If the device is locked when you enter device mode, Clipthesis shows a reminder and resumes browsing automatically the moment you unlock — no need to click anything. Keep the device unlocked and plugged in while a transfer is running.
Browsing and Filters
Device files use the Import grid's regular filters — All / New, media type (videos, images), plus a device-only capture-date range in the toolbar. Thumbnails stream off the device lazily as you scroll, so even a huge camera roll is browsable immediately. If the catalog is very large, Clipthesis suggests narrowing the date range.
Because the files are still on the device, there's no playback preview before import — cards show the device's own thumbnail, duration, and size instead.
Duplicate Detection Before You Import
Clipthesis flags already-imported and duplicate files before anything is transferred, in two tiers:
- Import history — files you've previously imported from this device (keyed by the device and the file's name, size, and capture date) are marked Exists instantly, along with the drives that hold them.
- Content check — in the background, Clipthesis reads a few small samples of each remaining file over USB and computes the same content hash used everywhere else in the library. Files whose content already exists in your library — even if they were originally imported from somewhere else — flip to Exists and are deselected automatically. Files whose size matches nothing in your library are provably new and skip this check entirely.
The default New filter plus auto-selection means a weekly "pull in my new iPhone clips" run is: plug in, click Import from iPhone, click Import.
This import history is per-machine, and it's noted at import time — media you later delete from your Clipthesis library still counts as "already imported" until you re-import it.
Limitations
- Originals only — files come off the device exactly as shot; no edits or conversions are applied.
- Live Photos — arrive as two separate files (a
.HEICstill and a short.MOV), which is how the device exposes them over USB. Both show up in the grid. - No pre-import playback — device files can't be played until they're imported; use the thumbnails and metadata to choose.
- Keep it awake — if the device locks or is unplugged mid-transfer, the affected files fail with an error; files that already completed still import, and no partial files are left behind.
- macOS only — ImageCaptureCore has no Windows equivalent.