But if you’ve ever needed to send multiple documents at once, or you do this on a regular basis, you’ve probably wondered if there’s a better way.
Fortunately, there is. Thanks to the Import from iPhone feature in macOS, you can send files right to your desktop as you capture them on your phone. Here’s how it works.
Take a Photo Directly to Your Mac’s Desktop Using Your iPhone
Rather than taking a photo on your iPhone and manually sending it to yourself, the Import from iPhone feature allows you to capture the image file directly to your Mac’s desktop. Here’s what you need to do:
Right-click anywhere on your desktop. Select Import from iPhone > Take Photo. A popup will appear instructing you to take a photo with your iPhone, and you’ll see that the Camera app is open and active. Use it to take a photo, and the options Retake or Use Photo will appear in the bottom corners of your phone’s screen. When you tap Use Photo, the image will appear on your desktop.
From there, you can rename the file and place it into your documents.
Scan a Document Directly to Your Mac’s Desktop Using Your iPhone
You can also use your iPhone to scan documents to your Mac’s desktop. Whether you want to scan one page or many, you can capture and build a PDF that looks similar to a copy machine’s quality.
To do this, follow these simple instructions:
Right-click anywhere on your desktop. Select Import from iPhone > Scan Document. A popup will appear instructing you to scan a document with your iPhone. Like the Take Photo feature, this activates the camera app on your phone. Once you position the document on the screen, your phone will capture the document for you, or you can press the button to do it manually. When you tap Keep Scan, the file will move to the bottom of the screen, and you’ll be back at your camera screen. Take any additional scans you need to, and tap Save to send the file to your desktop.
If you’re scanning a multi-page document, you can tap the thumbnail in the bottom-left corner to review, retake, or delete scans. Sometimes this can be finicky if the document is thick, but you can also use Apple Preview on your Mac to add, remove, or combine pages once you’ve saved it.
Add a Sketch Directly to Your Mac’s Desktop Using Your iPhone
Sometimes, you may need the perfect sketch to illustrate your point, or it’s easier to draw rather than put something into words. Using the Import to iPhone feature, you can create and add sketches to your documents in a breeze.
Follow the steps below to learn the process:
Right-click anywhere on your desktop. Select Import from iPhone > Add Sketch. A popup will appear instructing you to add a sketch with your iPhone. A blank Markup screen will come up on your iPhone. You can use the tools at the bottom of the screen to create your sketch. When you tap Done, the file will appear on your desktop.
Now, you can drag and drop it into the file you need or save it where you’d like.
If you’re working in Apple Pages, you can also use the Import from iPhone feature directly in Pages to save yourself another step.
Save Time With Import From iPhone
Your Mac’s Import from iPhone feature will make putting documents together a cinch. You also won’t clutter your phone with work or project-related photos, scans, and sketches, saving you the step of deleting them later. It really takes your productivity to the next level when importing images to your Mac.
