A bug has been recently been discovered in macOS in Image Capture. When transferring photos from an iPhone or iPad it eats up gigabytes of storage when transferring.
Discovered by NeoFinder’s developers, the issue occurs when the images are converted from HEIF to a standard JPG. This process happens when the user unchecks the ‘Keep Originals’ option in image capture. During the process, the app also adds 1.5MBs of empty data to each file.
“Of course, this is a colossal waste of space, especially considering that Apple is seriously still selling new Macs with a ridiculously tiny 128 GB internal SSD. Such a small disk is quickly filled with totally wasted empty data.
“With just 1000 photos, for example, this bug eats 1.5 GB off your precious and very expensive SSD disk space.”
It’s worth noting that only Apple devices are affected by this bug, digital cameras and other media devices are not affected during the import.
Neofinder’s developers said they discovered the bug while improving the metadata capabilities of NeoFinder using a hex editor, an example of what these files look like using a hex viewer was shared by the developers.
NeoFinder’s team has notified Apple of the bug.
