Problems with airdropping photos to macbook

Iphone 16, macbook pro m1, connected via usb c cable. I am not able to airdrop more than 200 photos at a time - the phone is stuck on the 'preparing' stage. Other than doing smaller batches is there an easy solution? Maybe a setting somewhere? I need to backup photos and videos from an old phone to the laptop, and have thousand more to transfer. Doing say 100 at a time will be very time consuming.