Level 1

4 points

How do I transfer photos from an iphone 4S to my PC?

Hi there,

My wife took a bunch of photos on her work iPhone 4S that I am struggling to transfer to my PC. Here are the things I have tried and failed:

using iTunes - iTunes apparently backed up the iPhone onto my hard drive, but I can't figure out where this is; there is no "Photo" option under the iPhone subheading in the list on the left hand side of the iTunes window; clicking the photos tab on the iPhone window in iTunes invites me to sync photos from itunes to the phone, but not from the phone to iTunes (there's my suggestion for the next iTunes upgrade!)
Using Windows Explorer - this method was recommended on numerous places I looked, but for me the iPhone never appears as an external drive on my PC... one place I looked at suggested that it may be necessary to turn off the passcode on the iPhone - apparently this is impossible because my wife's work IT people forbid it (I can see why, but where's the trust people?)
Using third party software... OK, I havent tried this... for three reasons:

Are you out of your mind? I need third-party software for an iPhone to do what every digital camera and mobile phone I have ever owned has let me do on a plug-and-play basis - where's the seamless design rationale behind that?;
I'd prefer not to pay for software to do what every digital camera and mobile phone I have ever owned has let me do for free; and
Are you out of your mind?

I'm obviously making this more difficult than it needs to be - I'm sure there is some simple 6 second solution to resolve this that I've not thought of, because all the other file types - music etc I can move from device to device via iTunes with no problem. It just seems to be photos I'm struggling with. Is there an iTunes setting I'm missing? Maybe I need to look harder to where all this stuff backs-up (any info on that would be great), but in my experience these kind of back-ups rarely happenas a file-for-file mirror, but usually as some impenetrable consolidated fle that I lack the expertise to unzip.

For the moment we are emailing these files off the phone, but please don't expect me to believe that this is Apple's master plan for ease of use!!😁

I hope that this provides all the relevant info to solve the problem. I am completely aware that there is probably some really easy solution to this; I'm new to iPhones, so don't spare my blushes by holding back on the obvious!

Cheers.

iPhone 4S, Windows 7

Posted on Sep 22, 2012 4:00 AM

44 replies

Jan 31, 2016 1:57 AM in response to treefrog75

Transfer Photos from iPhone to PC:

On a Windows PC the easiest way to get pictures from your iPhone is to just use Windows Explorer, but there’s two ways to go about this:

Plugin your iPhone to the computer without iTunes running

Wait for a popup asking you what you want to do with the device

Select “View Content”

Find your photos through the folders that are displayed

Copy in Windows as usual

If your iPhone is already plugged into your PC, you can try this method:

Plugin your iPhone to your PC

Open “My Computer”

Find your iPhone, it will appear as any other camera would

Open iPhone to find your Photos

Select the pictures you want to copy to your computer and copy/paste them into the desired location on your PC

Refer to this tutorial for more help:

How to transfer iPhone photo from iPhone to PC

How to transfer photo/picture from iPhone to Mac

I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

rennip

Level 1

0 points

Feb 5, 2016 12:57 PM in response to Southern Boy94

I tried many of the suggestions here, tried all my USB slots on computer to no avail and then thought, try a different cable and hey presto it worked immediately. The cable I was using charged the phone fine but clearly was not 'good' enough for this operation.

PS the clue for me that something may have been wrong with my cable was all the duct tape at both ends!

mattis2

Level 1

26 points

Feb 6, 2016 12:18 AM in response to rennip

The first I would do is to replace the cable. As you say, even if it's charging your phone it might not be able to transfer pictures. Also be aware that some third party cables either don't work at all or just partly work. Apple has over time been more and more sophisticated to keep other providers out by having software that detects that you are not using a cable or a plug from Apple.

As I have mentioned before: Be sure that you have the correct driver. The driver comes with iTunes. Reinstall iTunes by first deleting everything that has to do with Apple - like Quicktime etc etc, everything (none of your pictures or music will be deleted). Then restart the machine and reinstall iTunes. The duct tape doesn't sound good. Seems that somebody has tried to repair a broken cable.

rennip

Level 1

0 points

Feb 6, 2016 4:02 AM in response to mattis2

ITunes is irrelevant in finding your iPhone as an external device in Windows Explorer, I had completely uninstalled iTunes.

Duct tape is brilliant for mending cheap pseudo Apple cables, it was the cable itself that was useless.

mattis2

Level 1

26 points

Feb 6, 2016 4:53 AM in response to rennip

I haven't tried to contact my phone to my PC without iTunes as I use iTunes for my Syncios Program and nothing else. Since you have a cable problem, it probably would not kill your budget to get an original one. Then you might save some duct tape as well. 🙂

Duh-uh

Level 1

8 points

Sep 27, 2016 7:00 AM in response to treefrog75

did you ever get anything that worked? I am having the same problem and it's driving me crazy. seriously thinking of getting an Android. I do have iTunes installed and have always had the issue with importing from phone to PC. I just updated the driver, but still cannot upload the photos to my PC. The driver did show the Photo button in iTunes, but cannot upload. All I can do is SYNC pics on my computer to my phone, not the other way around. Need a solution SOON.

RajaRani

Level 4

1,473 points

Nov 21, 2013 7:19 PM in response to Ricardo Reis

Ans.: No

Read http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1500 or my Post above. Hope these help.

treefrog75 Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 22, 2012 6:57 AM in response to Kens713

Thanks, Kens, I'll look into this. I still think it's strange that I need a third-party software to get an Apple iPhone to talk to Apple iTunes vis-a-vis the downloading of photos from the device.

wis5

Level 1

0 points

Nov 17, 2013 1:54 PM in response to treefrog75

I was having this problem, all I did was go into my phone and something came up asking if I could trust the computer. I simply selected yes, and then my computer found the photos immediatly.

Dec 11, 2013 10:08 PM in response to Ricardo Reis

Ricardo,

I can't remember if I had this problem before I installed iTunes, but just a quick question: Is your phone locked when you connect it? Have you connected the iPhone when it is "unlocked"?

Jul 6, 2015 12:38 AM in response to joy6

Brilliant, now it works thanks very much.🙂

Chris CA

Level 10

82,513 points

Oct 27, 2015 3:22 PM in response to mattis2

mattis2 wrote:

Hans (Professor of Marketing)

Explains a lot.

Chris CA

Level 10

82,513 points

Oct 28, 2015 9:10 PM in response to RobinJohnson1988

RobinJohnson1988 wrote:

2. Use iTunes to transfer photos from iPhone to Mac.

Except you cannot use iTunes to transfer photos from iPhone to Mac.

You use the Photos app.

Apr 1, 2016 2:50 AM in response to treefrog75

Try to use http://drop2pc.com - very good thing for transfering photos.

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

How do I transfer photos from an iphone 4S to my PC?