Q: Why SO many random DCIM Folders?  I want ONE!

can128 wrote:

 

See, in my situation, I use more than one computer.  My personal computer at my house is set up with PhotoStream, and it works half decently (sometimes takes a while for pictures to load).  On my computer at my office, I would much rather prefer to simply plug my phone in, extract whichever photos I have taken earlier that day, place them in the folders I need them in, delete them off my phone, and carry on with my day...

 

I hope no one misinterprets my response as anything negative... Hesitant to reply to anything at this point.

Your unacceptable load time is likely caused by your Internet data rate, especially if you're using it at a popular time and competing with your neighbors for bandwidth.

Why not do the iPhone deletions while you're home (after you copy them, of course) and take one additional step - upload the latest pics to Dropbox or something similar?  After you retrieve the pics at work, you can delete from Dropbox to keep your usage low (and free).

can128 wrote:

 

See, in my situation, I use more than one computer.  My personal computer at my house is set up with PhotoStream, and it works half decently (sometimes takes a while for pictures to load).  On my computer at my office, I would much rather prefer to simply plug my phone in, extract whichever photos I have taken earlier that day, place them in the folders I need them in, delete them off my phone, and carry on with my day...

 

And you can do just that. As I posted above a few days ago:

If you have Windows, don't use Windows Explorer. For XP use the Camera and Scanner Wizard, for Windows 7 and later, use Import pictures and videos. Here are the full instructions from Windows Help:

How do I get pictures from my camera to my computer?

Here's one common way to copy pictures and video clips from your digital camera to your computer:

1. Connect the camera to your computer by using the camera's USB cable.
2. Turn on the camera.
3. In the AutoPlay dialog box that appears, click Import pictures and videos using Windows.
4. (Optional) To tag the pictures, type a tag name in the Tag these pictures (optional) box.
5. By default, the folder name includes the date the pictures and videos are imported and the tag name.
6. Click Import.
7. A new window opens and shows the imported pictures and videos.

can128 wrote:

 

I hope no one misinterprets my response as anything negative... Hesitant to reply to anything at this point.

I know the feeling. It's a shame we have to feel like that when all we want to do is come here for help, come here to help, and as drume mentioned, vent our frustrations on occasion.

You offer a great example of why it's important to many users to have Windows Explorer function as it once did. Sure, we can use alternate means, but Explorer was as readily available and about as simple of a tool as it got, and for many, that's all they care about. The advancements in the Photo App (editing capabilities and the Years/Collections/Moments view) are what "broke" Windows Explorer functionality, so we may never get all of it back, but better organization of the DCIM folders would be great.

The Windows image import capability is no harder to use than Windows Explorer. Windows Explorer was never intended by Microsoft to be the primary way to import photos; Microsoft has provided a tool designed for image imports going all the way back to Windows 2000, that opens automatically unless you went to the trouble of disabling it. It's name has changed from version to version, but it has always been there. It was just happenstance that Windows Explorer worked. And it didn't even work with all digital cameras. It doesn't work with my Nikon DSLR when I have a lot of images on it, for example. Or my Doxie scanners. And it doesn't work with many newer digital cameras that allows image editing on the camera. Apple could not have provided the added image management features in iOS 8 and still kept a single folder for images. So their choice was to leave the iPhone brain damaged for a few people who insist that Windows Explorer always worked and should forever work the same way, or to provide enhancements that most users would take advantage of and appreciate.

Lawrence Finch wrote:

 

....Apple could not have provided the added image management features in iOS 8 and still kept a single folder for images. So their choice was to leave the iPhone brain damaged for a few people who insist that Windows Explorer always worked and should forever work the same way, or to provide enhancements that most users would take advantage of and appreciate.

The enhancements are great, but it seems to me you're presenting a false dilemma.  As I've said before, Apple could have programmed their Windows device driver to show as one folder to Windows Explorer, just as it does within the Windows import utility.  Nothing about that necessitates breaking the new enhancements.

Plenty of the other necessary background organization on iOS devices is hidden away, doing its job quietly.  But for some reason Apple specifically chose to show the confusing folder structure in Windows Explorer instead of giving us what we've come to expect from Apple: an intuitive experience.

I'm not usually a conspiracy theorist, but it certainly seems like Apple is going out of there way to make their stuff work badly with Windows (iTunes being the prime example).  It would be one thing if they just didn't support PCs.  But instead, they actually bothered to make Windows versions of iTunes and drivers, then made them work far worse than the iOS versions.

drume wrote:

 

 

I'm not usually a conspiracy theorist, but

But you'll make an exception this time?

I assume you are not a system level software developer, then? A device driver is not supposed to interpret content that it handles; it should leave that to the application level. Which it does. It leaves it to the built-in Windows photo importer, or other third party tools. Of which there are many, and most of them free.

drume wrote:

 

Lawrence Finch wrote:

 

....Apple could not have provided the added image management features in iOS 8 and still kept a single folder for images. So their choice was to leave the iPhone brain damaged for a few people who insist that Windows Explorer always worked and should forever work the same way, or to provide enhancements that most users would take advantage of and appreciate.

The enhancements are great, but it seems to me you're presenting a false dilemma.  As I've said before, Apple could have programmed their Windows device driver to show as one folder to Windows Explorer, just as it does within the Windows import utility.  Nothing about that necessitates breaking the new enhancements.

 

Plenty of the other necessary background organization on iOS devices is hidden away, doing its job quietly.  But for some reason Apple specifically chose to show the confusing folder structure in Windows Explorer instead of giving us what we've come to expect from Apple: an intuitive experience.

 

I'm not usually a conspiracy theorist, but it certainly seems like Apple is going out of there way to make their stuff work badly with Windows (iTunes being the prime example).  It would be one thing if they just didn't support PCs.  But instead, they actually bothered to make Windows versions of iTunes and drivers, then made them work far worse than the iOS versions.

"could have"

That's irrelevent.  We deal with reality.

Philly_Phan wrote:

"could have"

 

That's irrelevent.  We deal with reality.

I agree.  I was simply refuting Lawrence's statement that "Apple could not have".  But both Lawrence and I have provided multiple solutions to the problem at hand, and each solution has its strengths and weaknesses.

Lawrence Finch wrote:

 

I assume you are not a system level software developer, then? A device driver is not supposed to interpret content that it handles; it should leave that to the application level. Which it does. It leaves it to the built-in Windows photo importer, or other third party tools. Of which there are many, and most of them free.

"...not supposed to"?  According to whom?  Device drivers do this all the time, including Apple's Windows device driver.  It only presents a small subset of folders and files to the Windows operating system, and it does so in a specifically chosen way.

It's not that they can't.  It's not even that they didn't.  It's that they absolutely did, but did it badly.

Could it be part of your overall conspiracy theory? (as referred to in your earlier post)

drume wrote:

 

Lawrence Finch wrote:

 

I assume you are not a system level software developer, then? A device driver is not supposed to interpret content that it handles; it should leave that to the application level. Which it does. It leaves it to the built-in Windows photo importer, or other third party tools. Of which there are many, and most of them free.

"...not supposed to"?  According to whom?  Device drivers do this all the time, including Apple's Windows device driver.  It only presents a small subset of folders and files to the Windows operating system, and it does so in a specifically chosen way.

 

It's not that they can't.  It's not even that they didn't.  It's that they absolutely did, but did it badly.

I spent an earlier part of my career writing device drivers. "According to whom" means best practices for any who work at the OS level. Device drivers run as part of the operating system image, and the OS (at least Unix, Linux, Windows, Z/OS, HPUX and most other extant operating systems) runs with interrupts disabled, so it cannot time share with any other executables. Thus, code in a device driver stops everything else from happening until it completes its job. That's why device drivers do the minimum necessary. And Apple's Windows device driver DOES NOT do anything beyond basics. It's the phone's file system that presents a small subset of folders and files, not the device driver.

Your suggesting that the device driver should "lie" and combine folders for your convenience neglects the fact that there are other processes on the computer that need to know that structure, so munging it would break other things. There is no need to do something in the operating system that dozens of applications do correctly, notably every photo management app in the world, except for Windows Explorer.

Can I try and offer a practical solution to the issue

IHave made one one folder on my computer

I search DCMI for files named image

I Copy all into that folder

delete all

then replacing all back from the folder into my photo stream for which I want left on my phone

long winded but works fine for me

Here's what worked for me:  As a previous responder suggested, I did a search for the character * in my folder containing the random-name folders.  Then I simply dragged the resulting file names (appearing below the long list of folder names) to a new folder.  I then deleted the folder containing the (now empty) random-name folders (or even, just delete their containing folder, which contains no files, just empty folders).  I now have a single folder containing my 600 or so pictures, which I sorted in descending-date order.

I recently upgraded to Windows 10 - there's now an easy way of getting around the multiple folders in DCIM:

In any Explorer window, right click on your iPhone icon in the "This PC" drive list, and choose "Import Pictures and Videos".

This takes you to an import wizard that allows all the photos and videos to be imported off an iPhone into Pictures (or chosen folder), with the benefit of being able to select individual photos or in bulk, and also sort them into Groups via a slider. The slider will sort and import the pictures (all or selected) into a single folder or multiple folders based on time-stamp.