How To Transfer iPhone Videos (and Photos) to Your Mac When AirDrop is Being an A-Hole

AirDrop is AWESOME! When it works… 😒

What are you supposed to do when AirDrop doesn’t want to transfer large video files?

I mean, how do you not love the idea of AirDrop?

“I don’t have to connect my phone to my computer to transfer 4K video files!?! That’s amazing!”

When it works, of course.

And AirDrop really works great — in my experience — when transferring a few photos or documents. Even just a few small videos files transfer reliably most of the time.

But when I’ve been vlogging with my iPhone 13 Pro Max, and I have multiple 4K video files that are sometimes 5 to 10 minutes in length? This is where AirDrop — for me — has been unreliable.

Honestly, I don’t even remember the last time I tried transferring 10GB+ of video files using AirDrop. What’s the point if there’s a good chance it’s going to fail?

So what’s the alternative?

Well, you could use iCloud Photo Library.

But this takes forever.

If you’ve just filmed several clips that are 5+ minutes in length, it’s going to take quite a while for those clips to upload to iCloud and then sync up to your Mac through the Photos app. And if you’re relying on a cellular connection? Forget it.