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PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS!
Here's how to copy photos from your Mac or PC to your iPhone and iPad
BY SERENITY CALDWELL Wednesday, Feb 25, 2015 at 7:55 am EST

14 Comments

Confused about how to sync your Mac or Windows PC photos to your iPhone or iPad? We've got you covered.

Apple's new Photos app for OS X (and with it, full iCloud Photo Library support on your Mac) is on its way, but until it arrives, people are stuck in photographic limbo, relying on iTunes or another third-party cloud service to sync their images to their Mac.

If you want to showcase your DSLR images on your iOS devices, though, never fear: iMore has you covered. Here's a quick tutorial on all the ways you can currently sync your Mac or Windows PC images to your iPhone or iPad.

Use iTunes (if you don't have iCloud Photo Library enabled)

If you don't yet have iCloud Photo Library enabled on your iPhone or iPad, you can use iTunes to sync your Mac or PC's images to your iPhone. (If you do, skip to the next section.) Here's how.

Move photos from your Mac to iOS via iTunes



Still using iTunes and iPhoto? No problem. It's a piece of cake to get your images from iPhoto or Aperture to your iPhone or iPad, and you've got plenty of options for what you'd like to sync: albums, events (dates), and faces (people based on facial recognition), or individually choose a combination of albums, events, and faces that you want to sync.


Organize your photos accordingly in iPhoto.
Plug your iPad or iPhone in to your Mac.
Open iTunes, if it doesn't open automatically.
Click on the iOS device in the top bar, then click the Photos tab.
Check the "Sync Photos" box.
Choose iPhoto or Aperture from the "Copy photos from" drop-down menu.
Select the options you prefer.
Click Sync in the bottom right corner.
Your iOS device will copy over all its images, and then you'll be set to go.

Move photos from your PC to iOS via iTunes



If you're using external folders on a Mac to store pictures (or a Windows PC), you can instead sync your iPhone or iPad from that specific folder.

Organize your images into folders and subfolders.
Plug your iPad or iPhone in to your Mac or PC.
Open iTunes, if it doesn't open automatically.
Click on the iOS device in the top bar, then click the Photos tab.
Check the "Sync Photos" box.
Select "Choose folder" from the drop-down menu.
Browse to your desired folder.
Choose to sync "All folders" or "Selected folders", and whether to include video.
Click Sync in the bottom right corner.
How to move and view your photos if you have iCloud Photo Library enabled

As iCloud Photo Library is currently in public beta, and the Photos app for OS X is in private beta, you won't be able to simply sync your iPhone or iPad to iTunes to get pictures from your Mac. Try to do so, and you'll see this error:



But don't panic: There are several ways you can get images from your Mac to your iPhone or iPad until the Photos app hits the public stage.

Option one: Use iCloud Photo Sharing



iPhoto may not support iCloud Photo Library, but it does support some of iCloud's older image-sharing features, including iCloud Photo Streams. It's also my first (and favorite) hack for getting images from iPhoto onto your iOS devices. Just select the pictures you want, then create a new iCloud Photo Stream from them by clicking Add To > iCloud or Share > iCloud.

Name your stream something like "iPhoto Images" and share it with your own Apple ID; within minutes, it should start to populate on your iOS devices under the Shared tab in the Photos app.



From there, you can view the images if you have an Internet connection, and you can download them locally to your device (which will then put them in the queue to be uploaded to your iCloud Photo Library) by selecting one, tapping the Share button, and hitting Save Image. (You can also select multiple pictures by tapping the Select button within a Photo Stream.)

Option two: Upload your photos via iCloud.com



You can also get your Mac's images onto your iPhone by using the upload button on the Photos section of iCloud on the Web. To access it, you'll first have to visit icloud.com. General reminder: Because this is beta software, there might be glitches or data disappearance; as such, we recommend keeping a backup of your photos offline just in case.

Also note that the beta iCloud uploader only supports the uploading of JPG files at this time; you can't upload PNGs or MOVs through the web. (If you want to get those files into iCloud Photo Library, we have a couple other options for you.)

Make sure you have the iCloud Photo Library beta enabled on your iOS devices.
Visit icloud.com and log in.
Click the Photos icon.
Once everything loads, click the Upload button in the upper right corner, next to Select Photos.
Choose JPG images from your hard driv