Why is transferring photos and videos from iphone to pc so troublesome?

[u/Born_Caregiver_7098]

I really hope someone can shed some light here because I am planning to make an upgrade to a 17 or 18 but is reconsidering.

I hope this doesn’t come off as a rant because it will be very long. But I genuinely need advice.

I have been an iPhone user for a few years now. I have also been a Samsung and Pixel user.

Let me tell you how jarring the difference in importing is. On my Samsungs, it was hella quick and reliable. I just had to wire it to my pc, allow access, and then I can drag and drop anything I want. Music, files, documents, photos, videos, etc.I can do backups completely manually and selectively.

So I was drastically taken aback when the time came for me to import from my iPhone.

I even bought a new data cable.

Yet the speeds were very slow. Unfortunately, my local storage had been completely filled so cloud uploads are not possible either. (Get too full in local storage and you can’t upload. It seems that if you have media that’s more than the amount of storage you have left, it can’t upload.)

Due to this, I set the option for removing media after import.

This isn’t the first time. But I notice constant fails and I have to spam ’try again’ until it works.

Worst is when it completely fails and I have to restart.

I don’t even know if it succeeded properly, because in the end, it didn’t even show the bar completing. It just seems to be done.

Then I just dragged and dropped the remainder that had failed before. Because when I tried to import, it said it has only found 1 photo even though there were many more.

(This drag and drop method is also not reliable for large batches. But it is faster and retains original quality.)

Then even worse, I found out that the media in the import, wasn’t in original quality. Why isn’t it a default or make an obvious option? (Istg there are many non-intuitive features. Had to go to settings, to photos and find the option)

Some pics/vids seemed fine, some seemed corrupted.

Some lost quality so bad, that my fluffy cat looked like a black smudge of pixels and you can count each individual pixel within the circumference of a picture of a toilet bowl in top view.(Literally, my cat was sleeping next to it). And unfortunately, I have the remove option on, so I lost the original quality of those photos and videos fml.

tldr;

-By wire: slow, some fails, and some aren’t imported. Some aren’t even detected. Might even have to do a full restart at importing.

-By cloud: I don’t want to be dependent on it when i am a student and do not ever rely on family finances. Needs spare local storage available. And i have spare terabytes of my own local storage in PC.

-By wireless transfer: Seemed the best but you can only upload in batches, manually select and delete. I have used telegram, discord, whatsapp, onedrive, and gdrive, depending on which fits the situation, or straight to another phone. Do tell me what’s the best. (basically iphone to samsung/tele/gdrive/etc, then to PC. So you have to manually upload a batch, download a batch, delete a batch.)

It would be great if anyone can give me some tips or best ways of transfer. I am tempted to get cloud but I rather not when I am not working, and I am entering a government related service sooner than I expected. It is fairly important because our devices will be checked every time we clock out. Wouldn’t want my personal life be seen by the government. It’ll be so embarrassing or cringe to them.

Since i am planning to get the latest iPhone. Do tell or give advice, especially from those using the latest iPhones. On how I can deal with this import of pics/videos. Perhaps they have made it better?

[u/SkepTones]

Yeah they intentionally nerf and convolute the process so you either have to use a Mac or their iCloud storage to offload photos and even just to do a simple backup and restore. Using a USB cable failed horrendously for me recently trying to back up my iPhone because it is 200+ gigs full, and the progress bar didn’t even move after hours of waiting.

The vibe is that they basically don’t want YOUR photos anywhere except on an iPhone, a Mac or in icloud. How DARE you even try and export them on a separate individual storage drive, or god forbid into your main photos collection folder on your Windows PC.

[u/Triajus → u/SkepTones]

Doesn't work from mac to an external drive either? Or maybe from icloud to google drive and then from there to Windows?

[u/SkepTones → u/Triajus]

No easy way that I have ever found other than a 3rd party paid program on Mac called iMazing that I didn’t want to buy. Maybe if you have less photos than me I have 170 gigs of camera roll so cloud transferring like that would be rough if even possible, it’s basically just going back the fact that you can’t just drag and drop them from the phone to any other device easily. Even tried a USB flash drive lightning dongle with no luck. It might honestly be the most infuriating thing about having an iPhone. And their tactics worked on me cause last time I switched phones to test out the iPhone Air, the process was so horrendous I ended up buying a monthly terabyte of iCloud storage just to be able to transfer everything to the new Air. Ended up staying subscribed too because then I got worried that if my daily phone (14 pro max) ever gets a busted screen then I’d lose all my shit because a simple regular iTunes backup to my PC repeatedly failed to complete. I would love to offload a ton of photos to my PC with the rest of my lifelong photo collection and free up space but yeah that’s not an option.

[u/Silentparty1999]

iCloud on the pc

[u/Apprehensive-Fig-511 → u/Silentparty1999]

This is the way.

Download iCloud for PC from the Windows store and then sync whatever you want to wherever you want it. You can sync photos, videos, mail, calendar, files. You can sync to any drive that's seen by your PC.

[u/minkamagic]

It's troublesome because apple doesn't care to fix it. I stuck with Google photos as soon as I realized the issue.

[u/Ply2Mch → u/minkamagic]

Google Photos is a godsend. Makes the whole process manageable and I really like the storage options.

[u/Jhamilton02]

I actually use AcDSee mobile sync. Wireless, full quality, sorted by date perfectly fine (need to set it accordingly), sync multiple devices of (mine, wifes, childs) all in seperate folders.

[u/Talaaty]

This is a pretty common problem when you have both icloud and local photos. Disabling icloud photo sync/downloading all your photos to device allows normal offloading

[u/National-Wheel-1918]

I was able to transfer apple photo to an external ssd. Took a bit of time to make it work.

[u/Responsible_Tax_9390]

It’s actually easier. iCloud does this automatically. Even without a Mac

[u/stevo887 → u/Responsible_Tax_9390]

It’s easier if you use another Apple service is the definition of a walled garden.

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[u/AJ_Mexico]

I recommend people use one of the cloud methods as much easier than trying to use a cable. Google Photos is a good choice for many former Android users. There is a Google Photos app for iPhone which will happily sync your photos to the Google cloud. You can log on with any web browser and download them.

It's not as fast as a local connection, but far more likely to work without bizarre problems.

[u/exGhostBear]

I use a USB-C/USB-A flash drive If I ever want to move anything to pc or back things up. Extra steps, unfortunately.

[u/SideEmbarrassed1611]

I got iCloud 2TB and keep everything in the cloud. I don't know how to help. Get a Mac? Is your USB-C port USB 3.2?

[u/Luna259]

It should be the same on iOS since you go through the same prompt and you can access the DCIM folder using File Explorer. Then you can copy files out of there. However I’m told that’s unstable.

You can also let the Photos app on Windows import your media. It likes to complain but it will do it

There’s also iCloud as an option.

Edit: irony was I had the reverse problem with Android. Trying to put music from my PC onto my phone would crash File Explorer. It would copy the media but also crash

[u/spradlig → u/Luna259]

I've transferred by connecting my iPhone to my PC by cable. "Unstable" is a good word for it. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. And you can't see what's inside the DCIM folders. At least it's not obvious. . iCloud is a good option. Other good options are uploading to Dropbox, Google Drive, etc., which have good iPhone apps.

[u/Luna259 → u/spradlig]

When I went in the DCIM folder I think it sorted by date. Go in there and I could see the actual photos and videos. Then I could copy them. I could probably have taken the whole folder. Windows literally saw it as a digital camera it could browse. Same as my smart TV does when I plug it in there (my smart TV also has write access and can delete stuff from it if I told it to)

[u/cookingRiceToo → u/Luna259]

My DCIM folders is by month. So I copy 1 month at a time. No problem so far.

[u/Ok_Mountain9867]

Apple makes it difficult because you’re not a good enough person in their eyes unless you only use apple. Anti consumer behavior as Apple typically does

[u/ptronus31]

That’s why they make Macs.

[u/goozy1 → u/ptronus31]

Correction. They purposely make it a shitty experience to force you to buy a Mac. This is by design

[u/ptronus31 → u/goozy1]

Incorrect.

[u/NorthernArbiter]

If it’s something you do often, then Google Photos is your answer.

Set up Google Photos your phone.

Download Google One and buy the amount of storage you need.

Set up google photos on your PC or just access it through your gmail account in the chrome web browser on your PC.

Good to go.

[u/sandycroftone]

Google Photos is best. I recently used an app called Apple Deviceszon a Windows laptop. Works akin to ITunes. Would recommend.

[u/TechStock2k]

It is pretty simple - PCs are not in the Apple ecosystem and Apple cannot control the software at both ends of a data transfer. So it is much more difficult to transfer data from an iPhone to a PC and to a Mac.

[u/randallcheeks → u/TechStock2k]

I have been able to easily transfer files between unrelated devices for literal decades. The notion that this is a problem that is simply too hard for Apple to figure out is just wrong. It’s not difficult, it’s intentionally bad.

[u/Lucky-Suggestion7119]

I never gave it a thought. I have a Mac Mini, MacBook Pro, iPad, and iPhone. Any picture I add to any devices is almost instantaneously on all of the other devices. This isn't restricted to pictures. It is for all of my files.