Why SO many random DCIM Folders? I want ONE!

Anyone found a solution to this idiot "hundred thousand" DCIM folder business yet?

I thought the reason for all this techno stuff is to make life easier......don't remember having to do this with my Nikon digital camera.....

The explorer search function works great to find and view pictures fast, but I cannot copy them from the search list. I get an "error 0x80030001" and the photo(s) or video(s) will not copy. I have to leave the search list, navigate to the correct folder then select the photo(s)/video(s) wanted and then I can copy them to a new location on my W7 machine.

dfbealer wrote:

The explorer search function works great to find and view pictures fast, but I cannot copy them from the search list. I get an "error 0x80030001" and the photo(s) or video(s) will not copy.

Dfbealer, I've discovered that you cannot copy multiple photos at once from the search list. You either have to copy them one at a time from the search list, or do as you do and navigate to the proper folder where you can then copy multiples at once. The easiest way to navigate to the proper folder is to right-click on the photo and choose Open File Location from the menu.

Dear crm911 - your post did seem to make sense - after moving all my photos out of their individual folders and onto my desktop, I could not delete the folders, even if they were empty. I tried the fix to delete the iphone from the device manager, followed your instructions, rebooted, connected the iphone, but now my pc can't see the phone. Itunes can see it, but I cannot access the storage DCIM folder - could that be because it is empty? After reading through the entire stream of comments, I realize I am late to the party, but just could not be bothered with it until today.

Replying to my own post. When I took a new picture, the storage file became visible on my pc, along with a new little folder to hold my one photo. I will use the search method mentioned above to find the photos instead of opening every little folder. Thanks for everyone's help. I am glad to get rid of all those other folders anyway. Thanks crm911 for the solution!

Or you could do it the RIGHT way, and not even try to view the folders on the iPhone. Apple never intended anyone to use the internal structure of the camera roll. If you just use a photo management app or Camera and Scanner Wizard on your computer you will get all of your photos and never see a DCIM folder.

Ellie, not sure if you read my post on page 4, but I discovered that each sub-folder inside the main DCIM folder seems to correspond with the month the pictures were taken. Even though you were able to clear out the sub-folders and are now only left with one, I suspect that as soon as you take a photo in the month of May, a new folder will be created. And so on. I think this is how it's going to have to be. Ever since Apple gave the option to view our photos sorted by month in the Photos App , it resulted in creating multiple folders within the DCIM folder.

Lawrence, I'm not sure why you think we're not doing it the "right" way. Just because there are other ways to view our photos on a PC doesn't mean viewing them in Windows Explorer is the "wrong" way. I'm not sure how you know what Apple intended, or didn't intend. To put it bluntly, you don't know. That is, unless you work for Apple in this particular department.

Using Windows Explorer, whether it be with our iPhones, a flash drive, etc., is one of the most common (if not THE most common) ways for PC users to view files. I assure you, we are not going about this the "wrong" way.

You can continue struggling with Windows Explorer, Or you can use an app DESIGNED to get images from a digital camera. It isn't only iPhones that have multiple DCIM folders. And if you delete DCIM folders or images you screw up the image database index. If you have used any enhanced features of the iPhone camera or edit images on the phone those edits will be lost if you don't use a photo importer app, because the "sidecar" files (.AAE) that contain the image edits won't be copied correctly.

The choice is yours. I don't care what you do.

tab1075 wrote:

Lawrence, I'm not sure why you think we're not doing it the "right" way. Just because there are other ways to view our photos on a PC doesn't mean viewing them in Windows Explorer is the "wrong" way. I'm not sure how you know what Apple intended, or didn't intend. To put it bluntly, you don't know. That is, unless you work for Apple in this particular department.

Using Windows Explorer, whether it be with our iPhones, a flash drive, etc., is one of the most common (if not THE most common) ways for PC users to view files. I assure you, we are not going about this the "wrong" way.

But you are, Explorer has no specific image handling organizational abilities, you may choose to use it, but it will be a mess.

What you are missing is that a short time ago APPLE and microsoft did work just fine but APPLE changed it..NOT Microsoft.

It is now much harder because of APPLE.

And i truly think APPLE did this intentionally and i am done with them...done!

not like this...i used to be able to open one folder and drag and drop some or all of my pictures until a few months ago...now i have to do a wild goose chase.

I have enough going on in my life to now have to search for new ways to make it easier to do something that was intentionally done to make it harder

i am sure Samsung has an easier way

Yes i am sure apple has better systems as you can see on this thread...it is working so well for apple...lol

The superior attitude is another reason i hate apple...they will end up like microsoft is now...tooo big for their britches

Too cocky

Thanks for helping me make my decision

Lawrence Finch wrote:

The choice is yours. I don't care what you do.

Apparently you do.

You offered alternate means of transferring photos from an iPhone to a PC, and that's great. But the fact of the matter remains, before iOS 8.1.2 (I believe), it was just as easy to find new photos via Windows Explorer as it is on a normal flash drive. This isn't so much an issue of transferring photos that have been edited within the native app. It's about having to dig through (sometimes) dozens of DCIM folders to find our most recent photos. Hence the title of this thread. And that's why we're here. Apple made a change that makes it more difficult to locate newer photos within Windows Explorer and everyone comes here to find a possible solution. We're not wrong for having done it the way we have for years. It worked perfectly before. We'd simply like Apple to tweak a few things to make it as easy as it once was...and hopefully people are using the feedback system to let them know. Until then, people continue to come here to see if anyone's found a way to fix it or at least work around it. That's why the forums exist. Let's face it, not everyone is going to read an entire large thread, so they won't read the work-arounds that have already been made available. So some of us who are experiencing the same issue come back to tell them what we know. It doesn't help anyone when users, who aren't even experiencing this issue mind you, keep coming back to tell everyone they're doing it wrong or we should just go buy Macs.

I'm not going to address Csound1 directly. He doesn't even use a PC, so isn't having the issues this thread is here to help with, and continues to come here just to troll. Sure, as a business, Apple would love it if PC users went out and bought a Mac instead, but they are not trying to force PC owners who also use iPhones/iPads to buy Macs. That's just ridiculous. If their business plan depended on millions & millions of PC users to buy Macs just to use their mobile devices, they wouldn't have been in business for very long. The fact of the matter is, it worked well for years. I believe this problem occurred because they began to sort photos within the Photos App by month. That's why each DCIM folder only has photos in them taken during a single month. We'd just like to see it better organized so we can continue to do it the way we have when it worked.

Well said!

However i disagree that this was not intentional. I have been a computer programmer since 1982 and you have to consciously program this mess. It doesnt happen on its own and it didn't happen to Apple users...just PC users.

My wife who is an apple user and has made sure we have purchased 2 - iphones...2 i touches...4 ipods...two i pads and a new Macbook pro has done the Apple argument trying to convince me to just go to a Mac. She recently saw what had happened and remembers how easy it was. She is also a programmer and realizes this was done intentionally.

She is also a liberal and we are both pro- gay but hated that the CEO of apple got so political....we both hate that.

In leaving Apple i must say that if Apple had addressed this issue and made Itunes better for PC users i would have been a APPLE fan big time...i dont like being forced to do anything harder...when it could be so much easier