Why SO many random DCIM Folders? I want ONE!

An alternative to syncing photos back via iTunes is to create a Shared Photo Stream (which is not the same as your "My Photo Stream"). For pictures you want to keep on your phone you send them to the Shared Stream, where they remain with no time limit. After sending photos or videos to the shared stream, you can archive the ones you want to keep on your computer using whatever photo manager software you prefer, and/or delete them from Camera Roll. The Shared Stream will always be on your device(s).

It is really easy to set up the Shared Stream and add photos and videos to it right from your iPhone, and you don't have to actually share the stream with anyone if you don't want to.

Excellent - good work-around! Thank you!

MacPC13 wrote:

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 have no issues with getting iTunes to fully launch on my Windows laptop in about 2-3 seconds, it takes about 2-3 seconds for my iPhone to be recognized, and then within a few more seconds I've navigated to the Photos Sync tab, selected the folder that I've already pre-made and saved to my desktop, and then sync. Last time I synced about 250 photos to my iPhone, it took all of about 5 minutes, and that was from booting up my laptop to disconnecting my iPhone and walking away.

TJBUSMC1973

Listen man, I have had the same problem.

This is my scenario, I use my phone to take photos all the time at work.

My boss wants to see the photos I just took on the computer. I have somewhat 10000+ photos place nicely and randomly in 57 different folders.

I don't want to have to install iTunes, or import all the photos onto the computer.

I simply want to browse the folder which has the latest 1000 photos, like I used to be able to do. Same with all the other guys here who have the same problem. Do you have a solution for that?

Use the solution we do here at our work (although all of our computers have iTunes installed) - iCloud. Pictures taken on our company iPhones appear almost immediately on our company computers using the iCloud PhotoStream option.

Using Explorer, search the iPhone for .jpg files and sort the results by date. That shouldn't take long, and you don't need to worry about folders at all.

That is a nice work around,T-Minator, Thank You for your help, but this a problem and needs to be addressed by Apple.

Why do all my DCIM files show the same "last Modified date" of last month and why do the names need to be so random ?

why would it not be better to have DCIM101 , DCIM102 etc.

I have the same concern as others here. When you have many random folders created on your phone, all with the same date (4 July 2014 for me), you don't know where the latest photo is.

Windows Explorer can see the files and delete them, but not the "hard disk" icon sub-sub folders that have appeared lately, nor can it delete a folder. I have moved every photo to my PC but I'd like a clean, empty DCIM folder so that I can find the next photo I take. When one is on a month-long trip without a computer, one likes to share photos on Facebook (for example) and one doesn't like to check every folder one by one.

The older 1,000 files-per-folder limit was better.

You aren't addressing Apple when you post on this forum, just users like you. If you want to contact Apple, use the Contact Us links at the bottom of each page of this forum. If you want to send them feedback, use this link: http://www.apple.com/feedback

Of course, this isn't Apple Support. I was supporting the OP because many of the subsequent responses were at a tangent. In other words, he wants only one DCIM subfolder, not new ones popping up without any hint as to which one is the latest. Having been on a month-long trip without a PC and posting daily updates to Facebook, I could relate to the need for immediate access to a photo that I just took (out of 4000+ by the end). Telling people to save to a PC isn't appropriate in this instance. The real solution will come if Apple developers reconsider the problem. Folder creation timestamps would be a start.

Anyway, here is how I solved it (partially) since posting:

• I developed an additional issue of my Windows Explorer not seeing the iPhone 5 after trying some of the suggestions such as reinstalling iTunes (and the other things it installs), reconnecting the phone, etc.
• Rebooted PC, reconnected iPhone a few times, but no go.
• Deleted every photo in the DCIM folders after saving to a PC, but the folders still contained the "disk" icons that would not delete and File Explorer would not delete the empty DCIM folders either.
• The solution that worked for me was to delete the "PHONE" entry in Device Manager > Portable Devices, disconnect/reconnect the phone and letting a fresh entry be created. It was actually recreated as "Apple iPhone" but today it has reverted to PHONE. This edit in Device Manager did the magic and all empty DCIM folders disappeared. Reconnecting the phone today created both entries ⚠, but that would be a Windows 7 bug. I have only one phone.
• In other words, I will henceforth save the photos to a PC regularly and keep the number of DCIM folders to a minimum.

Yeah, same issue here.....used to be one or two DCIM folders.

Was in a client meeting....took a photo of something important...I wanted to mark up the photo in Photoshop real quick in the meeting so everyone would agree on the mark up...then e-mail it off...NOT

When I went to go find the one photo using file explorer, I noticed 29 DCIM folders. Ok fine, let's just open the last one created...NOT..all have same created date....Ok fine, I will just sort the folders by alpha-numeric order and hope they are in some type of order...NOT...

I ended up just emailing myself the photo from the iPhone and then pulling it into Photoshop...

No iTunes on computer...need Admin rights to install.

I have over 2000 photos....It's been 23 minutes using the import function to find all the pictures...now I'm actually importing them one at a time...I'm on number 102...LOL...going to be a long night.

Just sayin.....

Instead of importing all the photos just to find the most recent one, why not let Explorer find it for you? Takes seconds for it to locate all .jpg files within the DCIM folder, then sort the results by date to find the most recent ... a very simple workaround.

yeah...i figured that out last night...did a search of .jpg and then .png (screen shots) of the DCIM dir....then hit Ctrl A and dragged them into my Pic folder.

Thanks so much to T-Minator!

Here is what works

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.

I have the same problems. Is there anybody who would know how to fix this? I only have 29 folders, but I have also took 1 photo today, and I had to go through almost all of the folders to find that photo. I hope someone will have an answer for all of us.