Why SO many random DCIM Folders? I want ONE!

Please tell me someone has an actual answer here. I want to delete the extra DCIM folders. I want ONE! 1! Uno! I've taken all the photos off my phone, but some phantom ones I am unable to delete and I can not delete these Fing extra folders. This is annoying.

So ℹ1. can someone who knows something please let us know how to get rid of these folders without completely wiping the phone and starting with a fresh install? If not, ℹ2. can someone tell me how to delete all these phantom files? They're coming through with no file extension - they just say file and can't be opened by anything but notepad and they're just a bunch of gibberish. I'm assuming I can't delete the extra files in dcim because of these phantoms.

Desmadona: found a solution yet? I have the same problem, when I connect my iPhone to my computer, the photo library appears as 41 randomly named folders where there used to be just two, one for videos and one for photos. The photos are almost sorted into the folders by image number, but not quite: one folder contains photos more than 1000 picture numbers apart. Some folders have only 1 photo, the largest I've found so far has 108. Some folders have only photos, where others have both photos and one or more mysterious items called "Local Disk", which can't be opened. One folder has 59 photos and 26 "Local Disk" items. Worst of all, I can't find the pictures I took 5 minutes ago; there's no way to tell which randomly-named folder has the most recent photos. This makes the phone's camera almost useless because if I can't find pictures I've just taken, I can't copy them onto the computer to edit, crop, resize and e-mail. I think this problem started with iOS 8.1.2.

I have this same issue. Don't understand why no one has answered this question! It's ridiculous that we have to open every single DCIM folder to find out what is in it. There is no method to what is stored there. There are not full, not in numerical or date sequence. Impossible to sort out photos so you can download older photos to free up space. TJBUSMC1973 does not get it!

Same problem for me. Since last update (8.1.2) I guess.

Hi Desmadona,

I have the same issue with too many folders, and not being able to find my most recent photos. I can't get rid of the folders yet, but have found a decent temporary solution to finding my most recent photos (until Apple corrects this problem, that used to not be a problem). Open your DCIM folder in Windows Explorer (WE). You should now see all of the folders that your iPhone has created. In the search box at the top right corner of the window, type in an asterisk: * (no punctuation before or after it), and hit enter. WE will now show you a list of everything in the DCIM folder. All of the folders your iPhone created will be listed first (yes, the same folders that are causing all of us headaches). Scroll down to the bottom of the folder list, and immediately after that you will see all of your photos. Your most recent photos should be listed first (immediately following all of the DCIM folders). Once you see the image you are looking for, right click on it, and you will have the option to go to the containing folder ("open file location"). Once at that location, you should see all of your most recent images.

Hope this helps. Not sure what Apple is trying to accomplish, other than turning us all into Mac users, haha!

Are your phantom files the 'Local Disk' type? I have a bunch of those, and they are tied to photo stream. If you have photo stream turned on on your iPhone, your phone stores image files that can only be accessed through iCloud. If you try to access them through WE, they only show up as 'local disk' file type. If you turn photo stream off under 'Settings' on your phone, your phone wont create any more of those types of files (though the old ones still show up on my phone).

T

Rechenmeister, check out my last post on this . Should help with finding your most recent photos.

Yes ! Good tip !

Knyght wrote:

Lisa you issue is valid. I have the same one. TJBUSMC1973 has no reason to be a jerk. Great yeah we can copy all the folders to our computer and organize from there. It used to not be that much of a hassle. I just tried to find a picture I took today and it was in its own folder by itself. The folder creation really has no rhyme or reason to it. Last time I plugged in my phone to download a picture I had one folder. What changed and why?

Where, exactly, was I a jerk? Please, show me.

raySaginaw wrote:

I have this same issue. Don't understand why no one has answered this question! It's ridiculous that we have to open every single DCIM folder to find out what is in it. There is no method to what is stored there. There are not full, not in numerical or date sequence. Impossible to sort out photos so you can download older photos to free up space. TJBUSMC1973 does not get it!

I do get it. There's a very simple solution.

1) You import all the photos to your computer.

2) You delete the photos from the iPhone. This frees up plenty of space.

3) Then, if you want specific photos back on your iPhone, use iTunes to sync them.

@TJ

That would work if it wasn't creating ghost files in all of these folders that I am unable to view, much less delete. They are not visie on my phone, but in the files when viewing on my computer. Thank you for your answer, though, as it may help people who haven't already tried that.

How do you know it's creating ghost files within the folders if you cannot see the folders?

@Tminator - the files have no extension - they just say file and can't be opened by any app other than notepad, which just spits out a bunch of ninsensical symbols. Also tried that 😟. My husband is having a ball with this though, because it's the first time he can throw his droid in my face with relative success.

@TJ

I can see them when i'm viewinf from my computer, trying to delete all my files and folders - same as everyone else, I assume. Family obligations taking me on a tour of DC, so hopefully I'll come back to a helpful reply!

THanks!

I'm with Desmadona. All I want to do is plug in my iPhone, grab a few pictures, and be on my way.

Why in the heck would I want to open iTunes (takes forever to open) sync up my iPhone to my computer (which takes 4 times forever to do), then again have to go search for the picture that I want. (my iPhone is a 5S with 64G of storage). I have a lot of pictures, songs, videos, etc. I want to be able to keep the pictures I want on my phone, get rid of the ones I don't want and be on to the next task in less than 45 minutes. If I need something off my laptop (Toshiba), I can get it in less than a minute.

I guess you have lots more time on your hands than the rest of us. At work, I'm used to handling thousands of files and I like to be able to go get what I need when I need it. I'm on a PC now, I have a PC at work, and I guess I'm just used to having things at my fingertips without having to open up applications (like iTunes) and go through the time consuming process of syncing things up just to get one picture (that should be readily available).

I used to like Apple, but they've gotten too fancy with their operating systems to make things easy for those of us that just want to "Get the job done" and go on with our lives.

One week ago, I had 4 folders in the DCIM folder. Now after upgrading to version 8.1.2 just 4 days ago, I have 34 folders. All of them with random names and random numbers of pictures. And why do all of them have the same creation date? I can't even tell which folder is the latest folder.

And again, neither me or the others on here with the same concern want to go through the sync method when we should be able to open, grab and copy. Less than a minute should do!