Can't copy large video files FROM iPhone to PC

Thanks bkim028 for an awesome solution; it worked perfectly for me!!!

FYI: I had a 765 MB MOV that would not come off my iPhone. The scenario was the same as for the original poster: went through the copy action, then left me a file of 0 KB. I couldn't email or post the file to YouTube, either. Nothing worked.

However, when I looked in the backup folder, there it was! I renamed it and it works just fine. Thanks again! Nice to know about that backup folder...

Please see the following apple support article for solution, the problem with photo and video sync in windows XP is a windows size limit not iPhone, if you connect directly using explorer (per instructions) and copy manually to destination folder then normally no problem. Is anyone having this problem in Vista or non xp systems? Nb phone needs to be unlocked so turn off auto lock for large files

Importing personal photos and videos from iOS devices to your computer

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4083

++++++++++++[Extract]:+++++++++++++

If you find that not all your photos were imported from your device's Camera Roll after performing the above steps, you can either copy the photos to your computer using Windows Explorer, or you can use additional software such as Windows Live Photo Gallery or Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0 or later to import all pictures.

To copy the photos to your computer using Windows Explorer:

Connect the iOS device to the computer.

Choose Start > My Computer.

Double-click the logo for the device to browse its camera folders.

Navigate to [iOS device]\Internal Storage\DCIM\100APPLE.

Manually copy the content in this folder to your computer, wherever you would like to store it.

Disconnect your device. Open the Camera Roll and manually delete all the pictures from the iPhone Camera Roll that you just imported.

+++++++++++++++++++

As mentioned in the orginal and earlier posts, this does not apply. The Windows size limitation is a silly misdirection since it only applies to the camera wizard and not what happens here.

We copied with Explorer, Picasa, or other transfer methods. XP simply loses the device after several hundred megabytes of a file. I suspect that Apple's XP USB driver is defective. The third party utilities do not have this defect.

Just seems lke a poor driver, and since Apple has abandoned XP users (see iCloud support), they will never fix it.

Using this method I transferred 25.8Gb of photos and videos including 876 photos and 138 videos with sizes ranging from 100Mb-875Mb without any issues. I run XP SP3 with latest iTunes and phone was set to airplane mode to avoid interruptions. If this does not work for a specific video:

1) try running a sync which will backup then access backup location (per above); or

2) use Trim function to shorten video then copy as a new video (ie keep original video) so you have 2+ videos with original footage but in a smaller size

Hope that helps

Hi JoC sorry to hear that, works fine for me and looks like there are some work arounds, what 3rd party trandfer apps work that are free?

@MrHK: iExporer works fine. iTools also, with a little nicer interface.

Someone suggests iPhone Backup Extractor as an alternate method, since the files exist on your computer after an iTunes backup, albeit with different extensions.The fist two methods worked so well I haven't tried it.

I found an interesting way around that did not require downloading iExplorer, Touchcopy, Media Player Classic, or any of the other progrms mentioned. I tend to resist downloading free software to my computer as I am never sure if what I am getting is legit and virus free, so I tinkered around until I found this method:

After plugging the data cord from my iPad into the computer,

• I opened the "My Computer" listing of hardware on my computer;
• tapped on the iPad icon, which brought up the list of photo/video files taken on my iPad;
• clicked on one of the ones I had been unable to copy (would always end up with 0 KB when the process was completed) and it automatically downloaded it to "My Pictures" directory! (Mind you, I do have a free version of Quicktime 7.7.1 already on my computer and the saved files showed up as Quicktime so it may be necessary to the process.)

This worked for all of them, except for the longest video of 7.27 minutes in length. For that one, I downloaded on my iPAD a free video editing app through the App Store (which I find a bit more safer than downloading programs onto my computer directly off the internet) and used it to compress the video. I then went through the prior steps again, and even though the length was the same, it did transfer the vidoe file this time. I am not sure how much of the quality suffered as it looked and sounded exactly the same when played on the iPad.

Anyway, maybe this would work for others who want to avoid adding addtional programs to their computers...

All,

Using an approach Qball mentioned on page 1, this worked Perfect! No 3rd party nothing to actually rename 'per se'. I didn't read all the comments so I don't know if this was already mentioned. I just checked the first page and 7th.

This is what I did:

Using your USB cord connect your iphone to your laptop

Go to computer (or my computer, it's computer on windows 7)

Double click on IPHONE

Double click on Internal Storage

Double click on DCIM

On my system, there are threee folders, 823WGTMA, 860OKMZO and 965YOKDJ. (your names may be different and you may not have more than one).

I double clicked each one and saw all my pictures and movies. I just needed to find which one I needed which was very easy considering, you can see the picture from the icon or even click on it to view it easily. However, in my case, I knew I wanted the last video from yesterday, so I sorted by date and easily found the one I wanted.

I then simply right clicked and copied it.

Went to the folder on my laptop I wanted to place it, and pasted. Piece of cake.

Dude. Maybe I don't have a Mac Book!

This is equivalent to our attempts. Are you using Win XP and a gigabyte of video? That is where the error occurs.

Thank goodness for your advice! Although at first i panicked because i was not able to find the back up file under the application data folder and then after some research i realized that it was a hiiden folder..so guys make sure you show all hidden folders in order to see the Application data folder.

Anyway this is sadly a serious bug !

Apple you should takae care of this..

its a great phone like the 4s should not have this problem and i hope you will make it better!

Anyway thanks guys for your support here!

bkim028 wrote:

Hi guys, I've been wondering about this too. It seems like iphone is not designed for recording 15min videos 😟 But I found a way to get the video off the phone.
The photos and video files are stored in 'Backup' folder ("C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\ (for win xp)) just before iphone is sync'ed with itunes program. So, after you sync it, find the backup folder, try sorting the files according to size, and find the big files which should be the video files. Then copy them to your folder & rename them to .mov extension.
I've done it just now and it works perfectly. 🙂
(Source: http://superuser.com/questions/32248/transfer-video-off-iphone-3gs)

I tried EVERYTHING from this list, installed a bunch of software and NOTHING!!

Guess what... I went the to my last shot and I did what this guy here points...

KUDOS !!! IT WORKED!!!

My video was +5GB and I just couldn't pull it off !!

Thanks!!

I just had this problem and after trying iMovie and FCPX I tried iPhoto and it worked!

I also had problems transferring 1000+ photos and videos from iphone to XP laptop using picasa and windows explorer. This thread lists several solutions to download large pictures and videos (eg thrid party freeware, paidware and/or technical solutions to access the backup file). I tried various solutions and found iTools best for me (but this thread lists several other solutions if you do not like third party apps)

Test: Transfer 25.3 GB of Photos (900+) and Videos (100+) iphone 4S to XP(SP3) laptop. Video’s sizes ranged from 120mb to 1.2GB

iTools http://itools.hk/cms/webpage30.htm or http://itools.hk

Free third party app with a simple GUI that allows you to back up photos, videos, contacts, PDFs (plus has other functionality that I did not use). iTools qjuicky transferred all 25.3 GB of vidoes and photos including Photos (900+) and Videos (100+). It did this in under 35 minutes with zero errors, which was very quick compared to thel windows explorer and picasa transfer

Touchcopy http://www.wideanglesoftware.com/touchcopy/index.php

Paid third party app with a free trial. I downloaded and installed iexplorer but would not connect /recognize iphone 4s with my XP laptop. Other users recommend this product but it did not work for me

iExplorer http://www.macroplant.com/iexplorer

Paid app to download and manage files from iphone. Nb as itools worked well for me and could not get free trial I did not try this app. Other users have recommended this

Disk Aid http://www.digidna.net/products/diskaid/buy

Paid app. Nb as itools worked well for me, and free trial excludes videos, I did not try this app. Other users have recommended this

Download large videos files from iPhone Backup File (stored on XP laptop)

Solution: sync iphone then copy relevant files from backup file. I did not do this as prefer not to access and rename large files on laptop (but many users have done this as it does not require third party apps). Here are bkim028 instructions (from page 1)

bkim028

Re: Can't copy large video files FROM iPhone to PC

May 29, 2010 9:15 AM (in response to modocsot)

Hi guys, I've been wondering about this too. It seems like iphone is not designed for recording 15min videos But I found a way to get the video off the phone.
The photos and video files are stored in 'Backup' folder ("C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\ (for win xp)) just before iphone is sync'ed with itunes program. So, after you sync it, find the backup folder, try sorting the files according to size, and find the big files which should be the video files. Then copy them to your folder & rename them to .mov extension.
I've done it just now and it works perfectly.
(Source: http://superuser.com/questions/32248/transfer-video-off-iphone-3gs)

Picasa http://picasa.google.com

Picasa is a photo management application from Google that can be used on PC and Mac and links to Google+ and Picasa Web Albums. The problem with Picasa is that it seems to use the built in XP file transfer so is subject to the same XP limitations i.e. large files >700mb would not transfer. Due to large volume of import files (25GB), Picasa was very slow (3+ hours) and frequently had import errors. The large videos 500MB+ did not transfer and the import errors led to Picasa photo database corrupting requiring me to uninstall Picasa and then reinstall. I would not recommend this solution

XP Windows Explorer (direct connection)

I used Windows XP explorer to transfer files to laptop by locating iphone in explorer and manually copying files (instructions below). Result: It tool 2+ hours to transfer 23GB of files, all videos under 500mb transferred, 3 large video files (550-700MB) did not transfer correctly (though several did). None of the very large video files (700mb+) transferred. I would not recommend this for large video files

Importing personal photos and videos from iOS devices to your computer

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4083

++++++++++++[Extract]:+++++++++++++

If you find that not all your photos were imported from your device's Camera Roll after performing the above steps, you can either copy the photos to your computer using Windows Explorer, or you can use additional software such as Windows Live Photo Gallery or Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0 or later to import all pictures.

To copy the photos to your computer using Windows Explorer:

Connect the iOS device to the computer.

Choose Start > My Computer.

Double-click the logo for the device to browse its camera folders.

Navigate to [iOS device]\Internal Storage\DCIM\100APPLE.

Manually copy the content in this folder to your computer, wherever you would like to store it.

Disconnect your device. Open the Camera Roll and manually delete all the pictures from the iPhone Camera Roll that you just imported.

+++++++++++++++++++

Windows Live Photo Gallery worked for me while importing a 35 minute video (file size was 5.2GB)

I was having the same problem. My large video would not even show up when I would open my iPhone pictures/vids using My Computer and opening Apple iPhone under portable devices. I used Windows Live Photo Gallery to import a 35 minute video (file size was 5.2GB) from my iPhone 4S to my computer with Windows 7 on it.

You can download it free for windows from Microsoft:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29223