iPhone photos not showing on PC

henrymonster wrote:

When transferring photos from my iPhone 6 Plus (using iOS 8.3) to my PC, only some of the photos are showing up in the DCIM folder. The rest of the photos are missing. For example, I have 540 photos on my phone that I wanted to copy over. Only ~140 of them show up in Windows Explorer to be transferred. Where are the rest of the files and how can I make sure I'm not missing any?

With iOS 8 there are now multiple DCIM folders. It's best to use the Camera and Scanner Wizard, or a photo management app. These will all understand the more complex folder structure in the iPhone camera roll. They will also understand the "sidecar" edit files that supplement the image and contain any edits made to the image on the phone. If you just copy the images using Windows Explorer you will lose the edits.

Hi henrymonster,

Welcome to the Support Communities! The first thing we need to figure out is why the PC is not recognizing your iPhone 6 Plus. This article provides some possible solutions:

iOS: Unable to import photos to computer - Apple Support

Once that issue is resolved, here are the steps for importing your images:

******

I hope this information helps ....

- Judy

<Link Edited by Host>

What happens if you attempt to import the photos using the Windows Import Utility? Depending on what version of Windows you have, it seems that Windows 8 and iOS are not "playing" well together when it comes to attempts to copy/move photos directly from the DCIM folder.

I created an account just to comment on this post - I had the exact same issue and have spent (literally) hours trying to figure out how to access 1000+ photos of my first child. They'd show up on the phone but when I went to get them off, only the most recent 150 were accessible.

Henrymonster, thank you for taking the time to post your solution!!! I'm finally able to get the photos onto my PC. Also, you were very patient with the 'support' you received on this post. I don't know that I would have handled it with such grace. Thanks again!!!!

That is how Windows works. If you wish to select more photos in the manner of using Explorer, then click on the first one, then hold down the shift key and click on the last one. That will select everything between the first and last. The Control key is meant to select one at a time.

However, if you are unfamiliar with how Windows Explorer works, you are better off importing photos using the Windows Import utility. That will import all photos that have not already been imported from the device.

I'm aware that using iCloud Drive or iCloud photos will make a difference in being able to import photos, but just a standard iCloud backup should not affect that. I've read of a couple of others mentioning import issues with photos in the Camera Roll in Windows. What other troubleshooting have you tried? I would remove the device from the computer and power it down. I would close iTunes and restart the computer. Power the iPhone back on again. After the computer restarts, connect the iPhone to the computer and try the import utility and check what it says.

This has happened to me as well. I've lost many pictures from a recent trip to see my 96 year old grandmother. I was transferring the pictures from my iPhone to my computer, and half of them are nowhere to be found, even on iCloud. Did you ever find a solution??

I have just discovered something rather basic: It seems all my photos were being saved to my laptop in a folder called "iCloud photos". I just never realized this!

Many thanks, again, and it seems as if things are more sensible than they appeared. (I have difficulty keeping up with the changes!)

🙂

I am having the same issue. Tried restarting phone and PC but it did not resolve the issue. Only 200 of the 800 images on my camera roll "all photos" folder show up. This is a new problem that never happened before this week. That is to say, last week when I went to transfer pictures, the number of pics in my "all photos" folder on my phone and the number of pics visible in my "My Computer" view of my iPhone DCIM folder were the same. Any other ideas of how to get to the other pics?

Almost three years later, it happened to me (I'm guessing at the last update). Thank you for sharing this answer. It's actually quicker for me to pull the photos off iCloud (rather than find the phone, plug it in, pull up the folders, etc.), so I'll leave the settings and pull from there going forward.

Monstereny wrote:

Hi henrymonster,

Welcome to the Support Communities! The first thing we need to figure out is why the PC is not recognizing your iPhone 6 Plus. This article provides some possible solutions:

iOS: Unable to import photos to computer - Apple Support

Once that issue is resolved, here are the steps for importing your images:

******

I hope this information helps ....

- Judy

<Link Edited by Host>

The instructions at Import photos and videos from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to your Mac or Windows PC - Apple Support are current (last updated Aug 07, 2017 -- 3 days ago).

Not sure why you listed the version of iTunes in your post as iTunes is not used and is not mentioned in the instructions (except in the context of syncing them back the other direction -- from the computer to the phone).

Another method to transfer from the phone to the computer is via a 3rd party app such as http://www.photosync-app.com

Awesome - glad I was able to get all my pics!!! Thanks for sharing!

I stil have the same problem!! I looked in the iCloud and the photos are not there.

I don't know what to do!!

Hi

I have tried this with the shift key and still doesn´t work.. any other ideas to select all the photos?

Thank you!