Q: Importing photos from an iPhone 5s to a PC

katsinthebag wrote:

 

Hi!

 

I do have iCloud turned on my phone, and the photos are synchronised with my photo stream onto my laptop, but I cannot for the life of me get them on my laptop. 

Explain what having iCloud turned on means. Are you using iCloud Photo Library? If you are, you download those photos from a web browser in iCllud.com to your PC. If you have Photo Stream turned on and the are "syncing" with the PC, they may actually be in the PC.

I have a Mac and use Photo Stream on my devices and I have iPhoto on the Mac set to automatically download the photos to my Mac where they reside.

So you are saying you tried this?

katsinthebag wrote:

 

I have tried to import them with the Photo Gallery app, I have a W10 computer as well. Photo Gallery is not needed to import photos but first see comments below.

 

but it only allows me to choose from the most recent 12 photos. Same with right-clicking on the device and selecting 'import photos and videos' from the drop down menu. I do have iCloud turned on my phone, Please see Demo's response above.  Be very careful if you have iCloud Photo Library turned on as you could end up deleting them everywhere.

 

and the photos are synchronised with my photo stream onto my laptop, but I cannot for the life of me get them on my laptop. Photostream works well with Macs (I have one also) does not work as well or at all with PCs.

 

I have made sure that the iPhone is unlocked, and clicked to trust this laptop, and I've also tried restarting both devices. My iPhone has the most recent iOS update too. The so called instruction page on Apple's official website leads me to an empty Windows 10 page with no clear instructions at all. This is absolutely true. In fact I emailed Apple about it and their response was that MS has no instructions for W10. That is true also but they do for W8, just follow those instructions instead, they will work with W10. I told Apple to redirect to the W8 instructions instead as Windows Essentials is not only not needed but inappropriate for this. They do not follow my advice.

 

In summary my 2 cents:  First do as Demo said above, this is critical. Check to see if iCPL is turned on. If it is your photos should be in iCloud.com. Log on there from a browser on your computer and download them to the PC. Then for good measure copy those photos from the PC to an external HD or large Flash Drive, that way you will NOT lose them. Then and only then turn off iCPL on your phone. Don't do this if you are not able to see all the photos on the PC and have not backed up the PC. Then reboot everything. File Explorer should now show all photos on your phone when you right click on Import. If the photos are on the phone but the above does not work the cache that W10 keeps about photos already imported would have to be reset. I can show you how to do this but it is not straightforward.

 

You should be be to access them on a PC as well as a Mac. Look at my screenshot. Do you have iCloud Photo Library turned on, or Photo Stream?

I only use Photo Stream, if I take a photo with my iPhone it appears in my Photo Stream on my iPad. If I take a photo with the iPad it appears in the iPhone photo stream All of my Photo Stream photos download to my Mac automatically.

If you have iCloud Photo Library turned on - all photos should appear on all devices,

OK, as you can imagine I was typing the long story above as all others were posting theirs. So you do not have iCPL on, good. I do not understand why File Explorer does not show all your pictures, it should. Nonetheless, try downloading them from iCloud.com on your computer to your computer (confusing enough ). Then proceed as I suggested above. Let's see what happens....

katsinthebag wrote:

 

I have both of those toggles on, but because my photo software on my Windows PC isn't iPhoto, it isn't actually connected to anything that can get photos from iCloud. The Windows app that gets photos is Photo Gallery, which needs to import things from the iPhone through the USB cable (I think). However, when I do this, only the most recent 12 photos show up. When I view the device folders, only the most recent 12 photos show up as well.

This is all correct. Try downloading them from iCloud.com and I will then show you how to reset the W10 Import Cache. Not for the faint of heart.

Edit: to be sure, can you see all the photos on your iPhone now?

I would try going to iCloud.com on a web browser on your PC as suggested.

I am now going to defer to elcpu since he is a Windows user and very knowledgable. No sense in me tagging along making things more confusing.

Demo wrote:

 

No sense in me tagging along making things more confusing.

You are not. Stay on please. Questions may arise regarding Photostream which I do not use nor know much about.

katsinthebag wrote:

Thank you! I think downloading them from iCloud is a good temporary measure. And yes, I can see all of the photos on my iPhone right now.

 

Oh dear. How do I reset the W10 import cache?

More importantly, have you downloaded them from iCloud.com and do you see them on the computer now? And if so, have you copied them to an external HD or flash drive? I am not going to "help" until you are sure you have them safely on the computer and on an external drive. I do not trust iCloud (ooops, should not say that...    )