The quickest way to move your iPhone photos and videos to your Mac

Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET

Is your iPhone constantly telling you that there is not enough available storage to take another photo or download another app? If a huge photo library is to blame for your iPhone storage woes, then you need to know about an OS X utility called Image Capture. With it, you can move the photos and videos off your phone without needing to use iPhoto or iTunes. Unlike those two bloated apps, Image Capture loads quickly and is dead simple.

To get started, connect your iPhone to your Mac and then launch Image Capture. The app should recognize your phone and show you a list of your photos and videos. To see more photos and videos in the Image Capture window, choose the grid view using the button on the left side of the bottom edge.

If you'd like to import all of your iPhone photos and videos, simply click the Import All button. The default location is your Pictures folder, but you can choose another location from the drop-down menu. Alternatively, you can Command-click to select a group of photos and videos to import via the Import button. A green checkmark will appear next to the thumbnails of the photos and videos that have been imported.

Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET

After you've imported some or all of your photos, it's time to delete them from your phone. Hit Command-A to select all of your photos or hold Command and click to select a group, and then click the small button with the red strikethrough circle to delete them.

If, like me, you begin to favor Image Capture over iPhoto for importing iPhone photos, you can change the default app which opens when you connect your iPhone by using the tiny button that looks like an eject button in the lower-left corner. It opens a small window where you can select Image Capture or another app as your default photo-importing app. There is also a box you can check to delete photos after importing them, which saves you a step.