hi this is gary with macmost.com let's
take a look at different ways to
transfer files between your mac and your
iphone or ipad
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so there are many ways to transfer files
between macs and iphones and ipads some
of those options work just for photos
but most of them work for any kind of
file let's start off with airdrop so
airdrop is a quick way to transfer a
file between devices and they both don't
even have to be your devices one could
be say your iphone and another could be
somebody else's iphone or imac or ipad
airdrop works between devices regardless
of whether or not you own them both how
airdrop works really depends on if you
own both devices in other words if
they're using the same apple id there
are of course more steps involved if
it's somebody else's device you're
transferring to or from so here on my
mac i'm going to first in the finder go
to airdrop you may also find it listed
here under favorites
now this brings up airdrop and shows you
nearby airdrop devices so you might see
a whole bunch here
then at the bottom pay careful attention
to allow me to be discovered by and then
you've got no one which basically turns
it off
contacts only so the person that you're
communicating with has to be
in your contacts that's their apple id
in your contacts or everyone so anybody
and it doesn't really matter you could
switch between these really easily so if
you need to do a transfer really quick
you can switch to everyone through the
transfer and then easily switch back to
no one afterwards now if the idea is to
transfer something from your iphone to
your mac you can do that in a variety of
different apps for instance in any app
like photos you can select a photo like
this one
share it
and then you can see one of the options
here is airdrop
and here you can see the device appears
there
tap this
and then you'll see it transfer notice
how it didn't even ask for permission
there because it knew that both of the
devices had the same apple id it was me
sending a file to myself so i didn't
need to give myself permission but if
this was somebody else's mac it would
have asked them to accept now the
equivalent to the finder on the iphone
is the files app
here you can see on my iphone which is
local files
and you can go in there and usually
you'll find folders for different apps
so what you're going to see here are
varies but you can also create your own
folders and store your own things in
here a lot of apps allow you to save
things anywhere you want
so for instance if i go into numbers
here i do have a numbers file i can tap
and hold that file and you can see one
of the options here is to share
and i can share using airdrop and select
here
and you can see the file transfer over
now i wanted to go from my mac to the
iphone all i need to do is drag and drop
something to the iphone here in the
finder so i'm going to drag from this
other window right into here
and you can see it transfers and i get
this little prompt here asking what i
want to do with it since it's an rtf
file it's going to offer me to open up
pages and other apps that accept rtf
files or i can just say i wanted to go
to the files app and you can see it's
going to ask me where to save it so i
can determine where to do that for
instance i could go into this docs
folder that i've created
save it there
and it'll show me the file
let's go back into browse here
and up to my iphone
in docs and you can see that file is now
there now perhaps the easiest way to
transfer files between your devices is
just to use icloud then you see the same
files across those devices so for
instance here on my mac i'm in my
projects folder if i command click here
i can see project system documents which
is an icloud drive so that being the
case if i go over to my iphone and i
look in icloud drive in the files app i
could see that same documents folder i
could go down to projects
and i'll see the same files right here
if i wanted to transfer file to my mac i
can just put it in any folder that's an
icloud drive and finds it in that same
location on my mac and vice versa now
another way to transfer files is to
simply use a cable if you connect your
mac with the cable then you should see
it here in the finder sidebar under
locations there's my phone it will
appear here and i have all these tabs
here at the top one of them is files if
i go to files i'll see files stored here
if i look at numbers for instance
i'll see that exact same file that's in
here in the files app under all my
iphone you can see docs and numbers and
there it is so this will show files
stored by apps you can actually see more
apps here that i will see in the files
app some apps actually have their own
kind of private storage space for
instance i like to use pro movie here to
record videos if i go back up here to
this level i don't see that app listed
here but it does have its own private
storage space and if i expand this i
could see the files that hit a store
there so i can record a video using this
app you can do the same a lot of photo
apps as well and then access the files
it stores right here in the finder
under the files tab for this device and
to transfer something you can just drag
and drop it like that you could also
transfer something in
using that of course whether the app
knows how to deal with the file you just
gave it is another matter note that you
can also go here to general and then
select show this iphone when on wi-fi
and if you do that then from this point
on you should be able to do the same
thing
just over wi-fi and not have to connect
your phone with the cable now with your
phone connected either with wi-fi or the
cable you should be able to go to photos
and then from there you should be able
to select your device here on the left
and then import any photos this is the
same camera import option that's been
around since the very beginning of the
photos or iphoto app and iphones or even
cameras before that but if you want to
skip the photos app and take something
directly from your iphone and store it
as a file you can run the image capture
app which is on your mac select your
phone there and then you should see
photos and videos that you've taken with
your iphone and be able to drag and drop
them
from your iphone right to your mac of
course if you're using icloud photos
then the photos app on your mac and the
photos app on your iphone or ipad should
be in sync all the time any new photos
you take with your iphone should appear
across all your devices any photos you
import from another camera say on your
mac should then appear on your iphone
and there's no need to ever connect your
iphone with a cable or wi-fi use image
capture or the photos app to ever import
photos it should all happen
automatically even when you're not in
the same location with all your devices
it just happens through icloud now you
can also just use plain old-fashioned
network file sharing so here i am in
system preferences on a mac and you can
go into
sharing and then here you can turn on
file sharing you can see i have that
turned on now on my iphone if i go into
the files app and then i go up here
connect to server
i can enter in here the information that
i see right here
and then connect
and i can select guest or registered
user since this is my account i know the
name and password
and then next
then it'll connect and there are all my
files there's my home folder there's the
documents folder i can get to all of
that and i can transfer files to and
from here right on my device so i can go
for instance into the projects folder
here i can
click and hold there and i can copy
or i can move and if i move then i get
to select where it is it goes to you can
also do drag and drop you can actually
use two fingers you can take one and tap
and hold and then start dragging and
then use the other one to navigate all
while dragging
and then go back up go to on my iphone
let's go into here and i'll drop it and
i've just taken the file from my mac put
it on my iphone likewise you could do
the same thing here
and drag
and then put it
on your mac i'll just stick it right
here in
say this folder and now on my mac if i
look here under
macmost there's that test.rtf now
another thing you do is you can attach
an external drive to your iphone and
transfer files there we used to call
that sneakernet where you transfer to a
drive and then take it to the other
machine and attach the drive there
so you can do a variety of different
things with this on an iphone of course
you have a lightning connector so you're
going to want an adapter that user goes
to usb and then you can use a usb drive
like a flash drive or a larger external
drive or i just have an sd card reader
here that goes to lightning and i put an
sd card in and then i could transfer
files to this sd card it appears here in
the files app so i can go into the card
you can see this one's used for a camera
here but i can transfer files just the
same way i showed doing it before by
drag or drop or copy and paste or if
i've got this connected and i'm doing
something with an app i can actually
choose to save it here if the app lets
me save it anywhere in the files app
hierarchy and then of course i can take
this card and put it in my mac or an sd
card reader and attach it to my mac
and then transfer the file from there
the same thing if i'm using a flash
drive or even a larger drive and a great
thing is of course all the newest ipads
use usbc
which means that a lot of the flash
drives and hard drives now are usb-c and
you can plug one of those right into the
ipad and transfer files to or from the
ipad and to or from your mac using an
external drive or sd card or something
as a go between now i showed you of
course how you can use icloud drive to
do this so easily but icloud drive isn't
the only cloud service out there a
variety of other services like dropbox
and google drive and such if you install
them on your iphone then they will
appear in the files app so you have two
ways to access your files there usually
through the app itself like the dropbox
app and in the files app so you can move
files from different locations in your
files app into say dropbox google drive
or whatever and then see them on your
mac if you're using the same cloud
service there hope you found this useful
thanks for watching
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