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Can no longer get photos off iPhone

For months, whenever I put my iPhone into its cradle to recharge/sync, if there were any photos in its "Camera Roll," iPhoto automatically launched, identified/connected to the iPhone, indicated how many photos were available, and offered to download them.

Suddenly, that all stopped. iPhoto no longer automatically launches when I connect the iPhone. (I've checked the Image Capture application, and it's still set to launch iPhoto when it detects a camera.) When I manually launch iPhoto, it recognizes the presence of the iPhone, but says "There are no items to import," even though there are new photos in the Camera Roll.

I don't know what changed — whether the new iPhone or iTunes software caused a problem, or it's something else. I haven't changed anything in my setup, or how things are connected.

(1) Is there any way I can pull the photos from the iPhone onto my Mac? Some application, whether iPhoto or another, that can "see" and "extract" or "import" the photos from the phone? The only thing I know to do now is to e-mail them to myself from the phone, which works, but is clumsy and salvages only 25% of the initial resolution of the photos.

(2) Ideally, I'd like iPhoto to resume behaving like it did before, recognizing the iPhone and the presence of its photos. Anything I can do to assist in that process? I've spent hours searching the Apple support library without finding anything that sounds like this. (The only item there talks about the need to first unlock a password-protected iPhone, but mine isn't password-protected.)

Thank you...

iMac G5, Mac OS X (10.4.11), iPhone G3, iPhoto 5.0.4

Posted on Oct 24, 2008 10:37 PM

Reply
8 replies

Oct 24, 2008 11:08 PM in response to Tom Altman

I'd try to reset the phone a couple ways first to see if there is a phone glitch.
hold both buttons 10 seconds until you get the apple to force a restart
Settings > General > Reset > Reset All Settings

If that doesn't do it see if /Applications/Image Capture can see them

Outside of that try to import photos from a different computer and see if it has the same issue. If you can do it I would delete them and put them on a flash drive then bring it back and try it with a single new test picture.

Make sure you Apple > Software Update is up to date and iPhone software is 2.1

You may be looking at a restore situation so I'd File > transfer Purchases and otherwise back up your information.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1737

Oct 28, 2008 11:02 PM in response to Tom Altman

Found a partial answer — a good workaround.

Unfortunately, my iMac still does not see or import photos from the iPhone, insisting "There are no items to import."

However, the recently released application DiskAid (free from DigiDNA at http://www.digidna.net/diskaid/) — which I found reviewed in Macworld's "Mac Gems" column — does allow extracting photos from the iPhone and pulling them into a folder on the Mac. So at least the photos are no longer "trapped" on the iPhone. DiskAid is definitely a "Gem" from my perspective!...

Oct 28, 2008 11:07 PM in response to dis grey

Thanks for the suggestions.

I have reset the iPhone and confirmed current Mac and iPhone software, without solving the problem. Haven't yet had the opportunity to try connecting the iPhone to a different computer.

Fortunately, per a separate post, I have found software (DiskAid) that can extract the photos from the iPhone. So things aren't yet working right, but at least there's a usable workaround...

Oct 30, 2008 6:17 AM in response to Tom Altman

Here's something I discovered regarding deleting photos from the Iphone after backing them up, beiing double sure I won't lose anything):

I'm using the original, btw.:

Connect your Iphone to Itunes
Click on the photos tab
Select Sync photos from
Choose folder and create a new empty one
Sync
All the photos are gone

Eject

Go to Finder and find the empty directory - it may now have a cache - move the cahe to the trash.

Nov 13, 2008 1:32 AM in response to MsAnnDerStood

Yup, same problem for me, too. iPhoto shows a series of "slots" where pictures are or should be, and refused to import them, saying they are either not valid photos or that they are corrupt.

Can get them off the iPhone just fine with Disk Aid, but resetting everything, even reinstalling iPhoto and resetting the iPhone changes nothing. Same problem.

REALLY irritating!

Can no longer get photos off iPhone

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