Can't copy large video files FROM iPhone to PC

The backup feature workaround worked for me. Apple needs to address this.

I have an iPhone 4 with a 9min video that I shot (1GB)...if I connect the iPhone to my Windows XP machine (like I always do) and attempt to copy the file, it tries for about 3 minutes and then without any error messages fails...it writes a 0k file to the drive. I tried rebooting XP and also the iPhone...no luck. I plugged the phone into my Mac and iPhoto recognized everything but ALSO FAILED to copy the movie.

This is a bug, Apple. Fix this. There is no point in my shooting 9+ minute videos if I can't get them off my iPhone! Yes, there is this absurd workaround that Apple doesn't even promote/advertise on their Support website...but that's too many hoops to jump through and folks who are not technical will have no idea why they can't copy their movie.

-Eric

I'm having the same issue with my iphone 4! I have two videos, one is 3 min, and the other 5 min that I made with the video camera. I can't get them off!

I even tried the backup method, and renaming the files to .mov but they won't play! I don't know what.

Anymore more help would be apprecaited!

Hi. Please let us know exactly what steps & approaches you have taken besides the Backup "workaround". Do you have Quicktime installed on XP? What version of XP do you have (Pro vs. Home...SP1, Sp2, SP3)? Have you rebooted? Can you double click the movie file on your iPhone directly from Windows Explorer and make it play?

The more feedback you give us, the more stuff we can rule out. 🙂

-Eric

FWIW, I just fell over this. I'd say it was an XP import failing, but the solution for me was to use Google Picasa which is free, and has an import from camera option. Click that, select the video, select the destination, and click import selected, and it was on my computer. Easy.

This is not a WinXP problem. This problem also occurs on my Mac Mini with iPhoto (which works fine on other, smaller movie files).

This is an Apple bug/problem.

Moreover, I do not understand why Apple does not have a feature in iTunes to pull off photos and/or videos from our iPhones. Afterall, we are FORCED to use iTunes for other iPhone stuff.

😟

-Eric

Picasa doesn't work for me. Iphone 4, windows xp.
Don't know what else to try.

Same problem here... WinXP PRO and iPhone 4 (both all possible software upgrades done).

Also, my iPhone backup is encrypted, therefore no luck in just copying the videos from backup.

I wonder... why can we shoot HD movies, when we cannot copy them?

I've had the same problem for a while, and not just with super-large videos. I use my iPhone to take short videos of my kids, and the longest I've shot was only five minutes (139 megs). I couldn't get it off my phone.

Picasa freezes up, XP's very simple phone/image downloaded doesn't work. I was able to get it to my Dropbox file, but it automatically compresses the file which I didn't want. I finally found success with a program called iPhone Explorer, once I found where the image/video files are stored.

Otherwise that one file was preventing me getting at the rest of my photos (normally I use Picasa, and it was always getting stuck on this one video). But Picasa has frequently frozen up even on downloading 1-2 minute videos. After copying the file from iPhone Explorer I delete it from the iPhone and remove the blockage.

Message was edited by: RC-DC

Not too sure if this will help but I've been copying photo's and video's from my iPhone onto my iMac using Google Picasa http://picasa.google.com/mac/

There is also a Windows version which I assume is without the /mac/ on the end of the URL string.

I don't actually have that much experience with using the inbuilt Apple iPhoto software so can't comment on it's abilities to transfer large videos, but I do know that Picasa works fine - And it's free!

EDIT: Am sure the previous posts about Picasa weren't there when I typed out my reply!!! sorry for that???

Message was edited by: richvid 18th Nov 2010 15:43

Not to contradict previous posters, but although I couldn't perform the copy using a Windows XP system, I was able to do the straight up copy from the DCIM folder of my iPhone using a Windows 7 system. Not sure this is definitive, but if you have access to a newer OS I'd give it a shot.

The Professor

Same issue faced here. Unable to copy a 543 mb file that was exported from iMovie onto a Windows XP laptop. Files of about 100 - 150 mb are ok for transferring though.

Using iPhone Explorer, the copying worked.

This worked great!

Thanks!

Just remember that if you encrypt your backup that you have to decrypt the backup first before this solution will work.

Or at least I had to do that anyway.

thanks.

works like a charm with me..

Awesome tip, thanks! This worked great for me too.

The workaround just worked perfectly for me. Thanks!