Help! I Can't Upload My Pictures Off My Phone!

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Level 1

29 points

Help! I Can't Upload My Pictures Off My Phone!

I have an 8 Plus from September 2017, using a Windows 7 PC.

Typically I need only plug in the phone, open Explorer, look under Computers, find iPhone listed, right click and select Import Pictures and Videos, and voilà.

Well, just recently, I followed this same process and now I'm not able to import. I have some 2,700 pictures and videos I want to move onto my PC and when I try to, on my laptop, I get an error message on the very first picture. Even when I select "skip files with errors" it will hang on picture 1 of 2700 for a minute, then move onto 2 of 2700 and hang for a couple of minutes, and after a half hour and getting up to only 10 of 2700, I bailed. I switched to an Apple-branded cable that I knew was brand new, and same deal. I try to browse directly into the phone's file through Explorer, and Explorer crashes.

I went to my wife's PC and had a little better luck. I was able to transfer maybe 900 pictures, skipping about 100 error files, when it started to hang on picture 1024 of 2700, then taking a few minutes before moving on to 1025, then 1026, etc. Once it got to 1028 I knew this option was toast as well.

I was able to browse into the phone's contents in Explorer on my wife's PC and move maybe 1300 pictures manually into folders, although on most videos it gets halfway through, then shows an error message like, "a device attached to the system is no longer functioning". Then, finally, I was no longer able to browse directly into the phone's contents anymore, and that was that.

I tried uploading the pictures into my iCloud account but I got an error message on that, too.

So, at the moment, I am truly stuck. Can anyone suggest how I can become unstuck?

iPhone 8 Plus

Posted on Oct 24, 2019 7:49 AM

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Answer 1

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binyacom

Level 1

120 points

Oct 25, 2019 8:12 AM in response to chasfh

Sounds viable, but here's where my mind goes on the pitfalls. Your pictures are on that device and viewable from there and only there at the moment. If you reformat and it doesn't work you have lost all possibilities of getting those pics/vids. Who knows, you could make a trip to the genius bar and they may have some diagnostic tools that can eventually get them off for you.

I read your description of the problem again and it sounds more like a possible hardware problem, e.g. a drive beginning to fail or maybe a problem with the lightning jack itself? Since your wife's laptop allowed you to get to 900 or so successfully it somewhat rules out corrupt picture files and it definitely rules out that the problem is with your laptop. You didn't mention your iOS version that I could see, but if that's changed since your last successful sync then I suppose it could be compatibility between windows and iOS (assuming your wife is also using a windows 7 or similar OS on her laptop).

Here's what I would try before you wipe the phone and possibly lose those pics/vids. If you have access to another iPhone (friend/family/old one, etc.), try and restore your iCloud backup there and see if the pics/vids all refresh. Then you know they can be restored and you can temporarily preserve them there before you wipe your phone. If that doesn't work, try the same thing with an iTunes backup. If that fails, I'd head to the genius bar. If it was me, I wouldn't remove the only copies I have until I was sure I could get at them from somewhere else. Unless of course there were no other options.

You could also find a friend with a mac and see if you have more success transferring the files there.

On that macroplant front, it's been a while since I've used it, but browsing your local backups (iTunes, etc.) was part of the functionality, so if you don't have another iPhone you can use then that is another way to validate your backups have the pics/vids in their entirety. Not as solid as an actual apple device, but still a good indicator you'd probably be all right.

Good luck! I have lost drives before and pics/vids are definitely the most regrettable things lost. Let us know how it ultimately turns out.

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Answer 2

binyacom

Level 1

120 points

Oct 24, 2019 8:00 AM in response to chasfh

That sucks. Doesn't sound good, almost like maybe the picture files are corrupted or something.

This is not an ideal suggestion as it's not free, but I have used iExplorer over the years for preserving my iPhone history. It has some pretty handy tools. I specifically got it to retain my iMessage and text histories with pictures intact, etc. Good product. You basically have everything on your iPhone from given points in time (backups) that are fully browseable/viewable from your mac or windows computer. May or may not work for your pic issue, but the developer seems pretty chill, may let you return it if it doesn't work?

Search for macroplant iexplorer if you think it might help. 39 bucks for a single license.

Best of luck, there has to be a way.

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Answer 3

chasfh Author

Level 1

29 points

Oct 25, 2019 7:36 AM in response to chasfh

After posting this topic one of the potential solutions that came to me was reformatting the phone, i.e., backing up my phone through iTunes, resetting all settings and restoring the backup, on the off chance that something got corrupted that could be fixed with this. Anyone have any feel for whether there's any danger to this I am not foreseeing?

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Answer 4

chasfh Author

Level 1

29 points

Oct 25, 2019 3:22 PM in response to binyacom

As it turns out, iExplorer solved my problems and I got all my pictures and, more importantly, videos off my phone. I guess that was worth forty bucks before my phone takes a complete sh*t on me and takes all my media to the grave with it.

I banged my head on the desk a couple times as I was introduced to the HEIC file, which Windows 7 has no native program to process, but I found a free-for-personal-use program called CopyTrans, and now I can see the pictures, so OK.

Thanks for the tip.

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