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Can't download photos from iPhone onto my Windows PC in chronological order

I have 1600 photos on my iPhone that I am trying to pull onto my computer. When I open the iPhone on my computer (using windows explorer, it recognizes the iPhone a device and lets me 'browse' the photos), there are a ton of photos (all titled 'IMG_0001.jpg', 'IMG_0002.jpg', etc) but these are not in chronological order of when I took each photo.

Additionally...there are three instances of 'IMG_0001.jpg', two instances of 'IMG_0155.jpg'...random multiple instances of files throughout all my photos. I don't understand why the iPhone is showing multiple instances of the same file/photo randomly. I am afraid that my 1600 photos are really less than 1600, and when I pull the photos onto my computer they are renamed to 'IMG_0001.jpg (2)' and 'IMG_0001.jpg (3)' since windows cant have multiple files with the same name in the same directory. Why is the iPhone allowing this?

Anyways I am very frustrated since this is preventing me from organizing my photo collection, and I hope that someone has some insight on how to pull my photos onto my computer where they are in the same order as how I view them from the iPhone. I downloaded some software onto my PC (CopyTrans Suite) that also allows me to view them in the proper order, the same order as when I view them on my iPhone; so I know that there must be some way to instruct the iPhone to give me my photos in chronological order and not random order. Thanks in advance,

iPhone 3g 8gb, iPhone OS 2.x

Posted on Jul 19, 2009 7:08 AM

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Posted on Jul 19, 2009 7:56 AM

Your best best is to pull them all onto your computer and browse them with a program that reads the embedded tags, so perhaps you can sort them by date taken. You can also try right clicking on the details properties column and see if the Date Taken is a field you can add to the detail view so you can sort by that. I use Zoom Browser (because I have Canon cameras) and it works for this.

I would also suggest investing in a digital camera. 1600 pictures seems like a lot for an iPhone. 🙂
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Jul 19, 2009 7:56 AM in response to apple_is_microsoft

Your best best is to pull them all onto your computer and browse them with a program that reads the embedded tags, so perhaps you can sort them by date taken. You can also try right clicking on the details properties column and see if the Date Taken is a field you can add to the detail view so you can sort by that. I use Zoom Browser (because I have Canon cameras) and it works for this.

I would also suggest investing in a digital camera. 1600 pictures seems like a lot for an iPhone. 🙂

Jul 19, 2009 2:52 PM in response to PTBoater

Thanks for your help, you helped me get a bit further. I just tried using Picasa to download my photos. It seems to work inconsistently. I tried to download the photos once and 800 photos downloaded. I went through the same process again and 1400 photos downloaded. The third time I tried it, 900 photos downloaded. So I don't think Picasa properly/consistently interfaces with the iPhone.

The good news is that the photos that Picasa pulled off preserved the date that the photo was taken. But it was pretty clear to me that photos were missing.

Does anyone have any other recommendations for software I can use?

Jul 19, 2009 5:11 PM in response to PTBoater

Yes, my PC prompts me to download the photos using the wizard. It's the wizard that is handling the renaming of the photos with shared names (for example - IMG_0001.jpg and IMG_0001 (Copy).jpg).

I think I found another thread related to my problem. It affects phones with photos that number more than 999. Seems like the iPhone's filesystem does not have any algorithm to prevent duplicate named photos. From the iPhone, two different images can be named "IMG_0001.jpg". But when I transfer the files to windows, Windows seems confused with what to do. It does rename the second "IMG_0001.jpg" to "IMG_0001 (Copy).jpg", however the file is the exact same after transfer, but I look up the two files using iPhone-interfacing software such as Picasa and they are clearly two different images.

So yeah it's pretty frustrating. And FYI, I have had my phone for over a year which is why I have so many photos. I would have transferred the photos over sooner, but I have only owned a linux computer up until recently and frankly did not feel like figuring out how to interface with the iPhone using something within Linux. It was always easier just to email photos to myself when I needed them. And then I was distraught to discover that once I finally got a PC, iTunes doesn't even sync photos from the iPhone!!! But I digress...

This is the thread that has led me to this conclusion ( http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5588647)...not exactly the same problem but I feel it's related. I am not comfortable using the solution from that thread yet, because some people had lost a lot of photos through this solution.

Seems like people who use iPhoto do not experience this problem. So I am going to try to use my roommate's laptop, which is an Apple computer, or I might go to one of those Apple Geek Squad Geniuses or whatever they are called to see if they can transfer the files for me on their Apples. I'll come back and mark this thread as answered if this is the solution for me.

Would much rather prefer if someone knows of a PC-based software that can properly transfer photos from phones with over 999 photos. Thanks,

Jul 20, 2009 3:35 AM in response to apple_is_microsoft

I was able to get all the photos off my phone just fine in iPhoto. I am going to keep this discussion as unanswered until I can find a solution for my PC or linux computer, but honestly I am likely to not run into this again now that I have a PC and I am likely to take the photos off my phone before they reach over 999. I found some software that costs around 30 dollars that works just fine on the PC (CopyTrans Photo...I used their demo and it worked fine, but it put a watermark on all my images) , but I think it's silly that my current only two solutions to ensure that my photos are in chronological order and non-duplicated (non-duplicated, that is, if my images number greater than 999) are (A) to pay for some software on my PC or (B) to use an Apple computer so I can use iPhoto.

The images on the iPhone are titled such as IMG_0001.jpg, so because there are four digits, you would think after 999 photos then the 1000th photo would be named IMG_1000.jpg, but no, instead it circles back around from IMG_0999.jpg to IMG_0001.jpg (which is how the duplicates started). This "bug" may have been fixed in the firmware version 3.

Thanks PTBoater for your input! And I hope this discussion can be of use to other people who are marginalized by Apple because Apple wants to obfuscate their devices using proprietary technology which hurts Linux users such as myself...I would have sooner backed up my iPhone but there isn't an easy way to do it from Linux. I would not be as angry and frustrated had I not spent nearly 10 hours yesterday investigating this problem. </gripe>

Aug 27, 2009 7:35 AM in response to apple_is_microsoft

I'm no expert and this has been driving me nuts-er for a while now. As it happens, a solution of sorts is hinted at above and I figured I'd post it here in a simplified form in case someone else finds this thread on Google...

1. When you connect yr iPhone to a PC and it recognizes the camera and asks what you want to do, select "Microsoft Camera Wizard" from the list and follow prompts to download all or selected images.

2. Use Windows Explorer OR My Computer OR the prompt at the end of the wizard to navigate to the folder where the downloaded images are stored and select Details under the view menu [if not already selected].

3. The list will show Name, Size, Type, and Date Modified by default and note that none of these are of any use in figuring out anything about the actual photo order. Right-click on the bar to the right of date modified and you will be presented with a list of options; Select Date Created.

4. The new column will contain the date and time that the picture was taken. If you click at the top of the new column, the pictures will be resorted in that order.

Note that the picture sequence number bears no relationship to the actual chronology but at least you can now view, group, move and rename without going completely insane.

Tech note: Not sure but it would appear that some kind person at Microsoft assigned the Picture Taken tag to the Date Created field because if you select More... on the attribute list that field is available but it takes some time to repopulate after you scroll up or down, as if it is reading the info from each file. If so, there are clearly times when they do things right 🙂

Can't download photos from iPhone onto my Windows PC in chronological order

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