Does iTunes backup photos and videos onto PC - in a way that's accessible from Explorer?

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Level 1

42 points

Does iTunes backup photos and videos onto PC - in a way that's accessible from Explorer?

Here's my scenario. My wife has been taking photographs for years with her iPhone and occasionally backing them up to the latest versions on iTunes on her Windows 7 PC. There are thousands and thousands of photographs and I'd like to copy them directly from wherever iTunes may be backing them up to another location on a different hard drive - so I can edit / delete / save into a more permanent location. As most of you know, on a Windows PC you can plug up the iPhone and use Windows Explorer (the file manager) to navigate through a myriad of random looking subdirectories on the iPhone and copying individual (or groups) of files directly to the PC. But in the case where my wife has thousands and thousands of photos strewn across over 100 subdirectories (and all with the same file date), I can't seem to get to the ones that I want.

I've Googled this and searched on the Apple Forums and have seen this same questions but I'm not sure the responses always showed a clear understanding of the problem. I'm not looking for a way to restore a backed up iPhone to a new phone - just trying to figure out if the Apple backup that's stored on the PC is accessible in a way where I can manually grab .jpgs. Any ideas?

iPhone 5s, iOS 7.0.4

Posted on Aug 28, 2015 1:36 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

elcpu

Level 7

31,481 points

Sep 2, 2015 7:06 PM in response to hgpilot2

The answer unfortunately is no. iTunes backs up the photos in your camera roll along with all the other data into its own files which are only available to restore your phone if needed. However if your pictures are all in the phone (under camera roll) you can simply connect your phone to the PC, then right click on the main phone folder (not the subdirectories) and then select import and Windows will import them to the location of your choice....

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Answer 2

Sep 2, 2015 7:06 PM in response to hgpilot2

You should be importing your photos to your computer on a regular basis like you would any other digital camera. Then you can view them.

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Answer 3

Aug 28, 2015 2:32 PM in response to hgpilot2

Hi

Since ios 7 when you charge an iphone/ipad it Automaticly

Backs up to icloud over your wifi.

You cando almost everything over wifi now.

For that reason we have 2 iphones 3 ipads & have not used our pc

For over 2years for iphone/ ipad & up to now we have never

Had any problems.

Cheers

Brian (uk)

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Answer 4

hgpilot2 Author

Level 1

42 points

Sep 2, 2015 7:10 PM in response to hgpilot2

These were all helpful - here's what I found:

The files are indeed part of the backup but are part of some backup structure that you can't access individual contents

Because I wanted to pull ALL photos from the phone in a format where full details (file date, file name), I did the following:

Open Computer by clicking the Start button , and then clicking Computer.
In the navigation pane on the left side of the window, under Computer, right-click your digital camera, and then click Import pictures and videos.
(Optional) To tag the pictures, type a tag name in the Tag these pictures (optional) box.
By default, the folder name includes the date the pictures and videos are imported and the tag name.
Click Import.
A new window opens and shows the imported pictures and videos.

Thanks everyone for the advice....

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