Plant stopped in its tracks

Like me, trying to get an Apple laptop to download pictures from a Samsung phone. 

Any suggestions?  

Please don't suggest an i-phone. If one of these two gets flung from the top of a ladder it'll be the Mac (even though because I've been using Macs for years).

The Mac corrupted an external drive today then couldn't see it so couldn't repair it. So I attached it to my 10-year-old Windows desktop which could see it and which repaired it. Then the Mac could see it again.

And why does Apple Preview crash several times a day?