Following my update to iOS5 my DCIM folder now contains 2 files. My photos are not displaying properly on the iPhone. Help!

Hi there,

I'm a little confused as to why this has happened, but since resorting my phone for an iOS 5 upgrade, what used to be just a single DCIM folder of photos and videos in it, has split into 4 and it's made it an absolute nightmare to find anything. For example:

Computer\iPhone\Internal Storage\DCIM\823WGTMA

Computer\iPhone\Internal Storage\DCIM\858HDJES

Computer\iPhone\Internal Storage\DCIM\860OKMZO

Computer\iPhone\Internal Storage\DCIM\965YOKDJ

This only can be seen when I browse via Windows Explorer (my personal laptop runs on Windows 7). Looks normal when I connect it to my PC at work (Windows XP)

Is there anyway to easily merge these back into just a single folder? And how would I know which of them the iPhone will save to? So it's quite annoying to find the latest photos taken by browsing through each folders.

I cannot cut, delete and paste between the folders.

Will the above mentioned solution work for this problem too?

Thanks

Hi. Has this changed? I can't locate

2. PhotosAUX.sqlite

3. com.apple.photos.caches_metadata.plist

I located the first one.

I tried this but it didn't seem to make any difference.

I had about 6 different folders, which seemed to correspond to when I had changed my iPhone to a newer model and restored from a backup.

It seems that each new iPhone started a new folder.

I also noticed that in one of my most recent folders it had reached 500 photos and so started a new folder as photos taken on the same day were spread accross 2 folders.

I played around a little with the instructions above, but was using DiskAid rather than "iexplorer"

I noticed that there was a folder;

File System/ Media/ DCIM/

It contained the photo subfolders but showed them with folder names of 100APPLE, 101APPLE, 102APPLE etc.

I found that you could select the picture files within these folders and move them all to the first folder: 100APPLE, so that this folder then contained all the picture files and the other folders were empty.

I then deleted these folders and deleted all the files (but not folders) in the PHOTODATA folder as in the above post.

I then powered off and restarted my iPhone and let if boot fully.

Opened'Photos' and waited for the iPhone to 'rebuild the library'.

Now when I go to the DCIM folder I only get one folder (860OKMZO)!

THANK YOU alasdairfromneston! Worked like a charm 🙂

I'm bumping this as the "solution" is more a work around than addressing the issue. All images/user generated files should be accessible through Windows Explorer (PC Connection), not just all the various DCIM subfolders that comprise Camera Roll only. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5795034

Cheers

Not sure if the original poster and everyone else came here because they have some photos that they do not want on the iphone but are unable to remove. I too had the issue and I solved it by using a little bit of what is mentinoed here, but before you clean the 3 files mentioned (only the first one is regenerated in ios 7+), you have to delete the content of the 100SYNCD folder which is in the PhotoData/Sync. There may be other locations of the 100SYNCD folder which have the cached thumbnails and those should be deleted too. After deleting these files, then I deleted the .sqllite file and after that the files are no longer showing up.

Note that the 100SYNCD folder is the folder that is used to store all photos that are synced by itunes other than the ones taken on the iphone itself. So if you have setup to sync itunes with a photos folder on your PC and later removed the sync of that folder, then the contents of that folder will remain in 100SYNCD which was the root cause of my troubles.

Even if your content to be deleted is not in the 100SYNCD folder, just mount the iphone using iExplorer and search for that file in the mounted iphone. When you find the file you will know that is the location where other files to delete exist as well. You will also need to find the corresponding cache/thumbnails and delete them as well - they will likely have the same name as the file before the extension. So just deleting the sql files alone is insifficient to solve it as it will cause the files to be found again and rebuilt.

I did your solution with diskaid from time to time and it worked fine. But now I got all my albums twice in the album list, after restoring it.

album1

album2

album3 (so far correct)

and then

album1

album2

album3

again with random incorrect pictures in it. Which meta file is gone wrong there?

The album are synchronized with iTunes, roundabout 50

Having a similar issue. I'm not sure if this started because I installed a Sony "Play Memories" program (which I have uninstalled), or due to the last iPhone update with my 5S, but I have gone from 4 folders under DCIM, to 37 photo folders! Completely unmanageable, there is no rhyme or reason to the folder naming convention and can't even sort by date created, as they were all created on the same date. I need to consolidate my photos back into 3 of 4 manageable folders. I don't understand the directions for iExplorer - there are missing steps, specifically the "Plug iPhone in and navigate to the PHOTODATA folder." How or where do I navigate to the "PHOTODATA" folder? I don't see it in iExplorer, so can't navigate there. This is insane. I about ready to call Apple, and they better not try to charge me for this. This is bizarre glitch in their system, imo. Anyone able to provide a few more clarification steps so I can try this fix? Thanks!

I am having the same issue as you, have you heard of a fix?

No, no fix, yet. AJ, the supervisor at Apple Care did email me yesterday, to let me know the engineers have been made aware of this issue, and that it is not an isolated issue, but many users are experiencing this bizarre multiple folder issue. They are working on identifying the problem, and then creating a fix for it. It was recommended to me by AJ to watch for iOS updates, and install if you find one, as I am assuming the fix will be included in one of the fixes. It makes it impossible to find any current photos to transfer to my computer, or, to browse via my pc to look for older photos. Just terrible.

Since my upgrade to IOS 8.1.2 on my iphone 6 Plus I now have 33 folders that are seen from a windows 7 PC. All have the same dates on them.

Is there any indication when this will be fixed or a work around?

Dave, please read my posts in this message thread. Please report this to Apple Customer Care. The more people report, the more they realize the magnitude of the issue, the faster we have a fix.

Patty S.

+1 => the same issue - iPhone 6 vs. WIN 7..:(

godbreak, did you report this to Apple Care? Clearly, Apple does not monitor these boards or offer an official assistance. The only way Apple will know how widespread this issue is, is to report your problem. Please report.