Can I put photos on a thumb drive from my iPad with an adapter? How?

No. You will need to synch to a computer and download them from there

With the iPad's camera connection kit you may be able to copy photos from a flash drive, but a lot of flash drives require more power than the iPad supplies to the kit - the kit also has an SD card reader.

You need to create a DCIM directory off the root of the flash drive or SD card, with the photos underneath it, and the photo filenames need to be exactly 8 characters long (no spaces) plus the file extension i.e. in a similar format as if a camera had created/written them.

Or you could sync photos from your computer's iTunes : http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4236

Or there are third-party photo management apps that allow you to transfer photos to/from your computer via your wifi network e.g. Photo Manager Pro.

Another way. You can use a USB flash drive & the camera connection kit.

Plug the USB flash drive into your computer & create a new folder titled DCIM. Then put your movie/photo files into the folder. The files must have a filename with exactly 8 characters long (no spaces) plus the file extension (i.e., my-movie.mov; DSCN0164.jpg).

Now plug the flash drive into the iPad using the camera connection kit. Open the Photos app, the movie/photo files should appear & you can import. (You can not export using the camera connection kit.)

Secrets of the iPad Camera Connection Kit

http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-57401068-285/secrets-of-the-ipad-camera-conn ection-kit/

 Cheers, Tom 😉

No, the only way is with a cable connected to PC or Mac and from there manually uplaod them. The other way to upload the photos to the PC or MAc is using Photo Steam (ios 5.0 or later)

Seems like a design flaw to me. I can't even plug in a thumb drive even though it's USB because my iPad immediately gives a "too much power required" error message. How a simple thumb drive can use too much power is beyond me!! Come on, Apple, give us a hand here!

Note that the thread you are replying to has been dormant for 7 months.

Why use a USB drive when you can use Dropbox or Photostream to share photos?

For what its worth I can attach a USB drive with a DCIM directory to my iPad 4 on iOS 6.1 with the CCK and don't get any "too much power" messages. My iPad sees the photos in the DCIM directory with no problem.

Have you tried a powered USB Hub with your Thumb drive?

Why? I was traveling around Mexico and wanted to print a pic in a local photo shop. They didn't have wifi, so I tried to put my pic on a thumbdrive. I had to walk around, find a coffe shop, email them the photo, then walk back. Simple things that used to be easy.

Not sure what a DCIM directory is. I'll google that. I also don't know what a powered USB hub is.

Thanks for the reply.

From what I read, creating a DCIM directory on a thumb drive wouldn't get around the error message that immediately appears if I plug in the thumb drive. Have you tried it?

DCIM folder is a folder (created by a device or the user) where your device's camera images are stored. DCIM=Digital Camera IMages

You can use a thumb drive. THe catch is that you will literally have a 50/50 success rate. I once had my hands on 14 separate thumb drives. Put the exact same files on all of them and half worked. There was no rhymn or reason to it. Some 4 gig drives worked while 256 meg ones didn't. One lexar did while another didn't. If you want to try you have to experiment. NO single manufacturer, no single size had 100% success. (I had a variety of branded, non branded drives, 256 meg - 8 gig)

I would avoid Kingston and Sandisk. Those drives have bundled software that will try to run, triggering the 'too much power' warning. ALso avoid ones with flashy LED lights.

THe reason you cannot transfer photos off your drive is that the iPad does not have a mail file manager, like Mac's 'finder' or PC's 'my computer'. Without that there are no protocols to move files about.

YOu can use a flash drive to put photo or video files onto the iPad, but not off the iPad.