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Help: Restoring Photos from Device to Mac

Junior

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Alright, so I messed up and need help/advice from any of the more advanced Apple users that have come into this problem.

I took my MacBook Pro in for service to the apple store and they replaced the SSD (under recall). I did my own backup the night before BUT, I forgot to create a mirror of my Photos library. So once they replaced and wiped the SSD, I was left with a brand new Photos (empty) application.

I never used iCloud Photos for backup and always had it disabled on my Laptop, Phone, iPad, etc. Any photo library sync was done tethered and the photos library was stored locally on my MacBook.

Last night, I panicked and noticed that my photo library was still on my iPhone (that was backed up from the MacBook before the wipe) and I mistakenly decided to enable the iCloud Photo sync, and it basically removed all the photos I had on my phone and sync'd with my MacBook - which is now blank. Alright, my mistake.

The only other place that has my full photos library in tact is my iPad Pro 11, which I have not tether backed up yet OR toggled the Photos iCloud sync.

My fear is that once I plug it in, or turn on that iCloud sync it's going to erase 10+ years of photos.

What are my options to safely get those photos from the iPad back onto my Mac?
 
If you use a flash drive than can connect to the iPad, as well as store photos from there, import your images to the drive and get them to the Mac that way.

Another option that will certainly work, is online storage (other than iCloud). Google Photos, OneDrive, ... Once they are safely stored online, it should be possible to get the pictures from there to your Mac.

There’s one more thing that might help, even though it might be quite lengthy: use AirDrop between both devices. No idea how many images can be sent at one go. It might take quite a while, if there are many photos.
 
J.A. I'll give them a shot in the order you've described. Does it matter that they've been organized in albums through the photos app and NOT in the camera roll?

I've tried going through Image Capture but that only shows you images in your camera roll, not the albums.
 
No idea, sorry! The flash drive I’m using imports the images from All Photos, your albums, or Photos in the Photos app. They are stored as albums on the drive.

Afaik, Google Photos and other online storage options get the images from Photos or All Photos. It’s possible that you have to rearrange them into albums/folders once they are imported.
 
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