Why are all my pictures displayed in multiple folders on my PC?

[iMore Question]

Why are all my pictures displayed in multiple folders on my PC.

When I open the DCIM folder there are 21 separate folders with 1 or several pictures in each. How do I get ALL the pictures in 1 folder or some format where I can scroll through them?

 

[mikeo007]

Re: Why are all my pictures displayed in multiple folders on my PC.

I'd recommend using some photo management software. Windows has a built in import utility that can traverse all the folders, and Photos/iPhoto on OSX can view without even importing. I'd imagine there's got to be similar software on Windows as well.

 

[MarkY3130]

Re: Why are all my pictures displayed in multiple folders on my PC.

I too find it annoying that the iphone creates all these folders. I haven't found a solution short of copying and pasting them all into one folder on my computers hard drive. The nice thing here is the next time I upload the pictures to my computer I can select all the photos in each filder, copy, then paste into the folder on my computer and it will only paste in the new photos, so no duplicates. I dislike iTunes so it isn't the solution for me.

Really wish the iPhone only had a couple folders instead of many random ones.

 

[The_Engine]

Re: Why are all my pictures displayed in multiple folders on my PC.

I have a great workaround using a saved search instead of iTunes.

Requirements

• Apple mobile device (duh)
• PC with Windows 8.1 (though these instructions can be tweaked for earlier versions)
• iTunes installed, OR install device support without iTunes by downloading the official iTunes installer, extracting it with 7zip or WinRAR, and then installing AppleApplicationSupport64.msi followed by AppleMobileDeviceSupport6464.msi (assuming a 64-bit version of Windows).

Instructions to create the saved search

1. Connect your Apple device to your PC (wired connection).
2. Open File Explorer.
3. Double-click your Apple device, then "Internal Storage", then "DCIM".
4. In the upper-right Search window, type * (just the asterisk) and hit enter.
5. In the top menu, select View > Details (in the Layout section).
6. Click the arrow next to the "Type" column header. Check all types except "File Folder" and "Local Disk".
7. In the top menu, select View > Large Icons (in the Layout section).
8. In the top menu, select View > Sort By > Date modified.
9. In the top menu, select View > Sort By > Descending. (for most recent first)
10. In the top menu, select Search > Save Search. In File name, type a saved search name. Since you may have more than one Apple device, I strongly suggest using the device name, such as "Bob's iPhone 6 Search". You will have to repeat this process to make an individual saved search for each Apple device.

From now on, when you open File Explorer, the Navigation Pane on the left will list your saved search under both "Favorites" and "This PC". Just select it whenever you want to see your Apple devices contents. Woo hoo!

 

[Baralan]

I thought I had found an answet to my prayers with that workaround but after carefully (twice) following every step, after I completed Saved Search to the appropriate folder, Explorer hung "Not Responding" on the Search Results. Could it be the Quick Time Movie files as I have problems uploading them in Picasa?

 

[jbgusa]

Thanks for this tip. After I get to the search results, Windows explorer does not let me copy the pictures noting an error. Please advise how to resolve and copy after the *.* search. Thanks!

 

[Baralan]

I no longer use the search. I open up the DCIM file in Explorer then copy and past the images to my appropriate My Pictures folders.

 

[jbgusa]

Thank you!
I have always done it like rhat. The issue I have is that now I have over 150 folders on 6s iphone and no way to make sure I am looking at all the puctures I need to transfer.
Do u have the same issue?

 

[Baralan]

After I have transferred all my pics to my individual PC folders I periodically copy the folders to a Master Iphones folder and unless I specifically want to keep pics on my Iphone I delete the pics from there, either whole or part, as much as anything to free up storage on my Iphone. It's a routine I need to kep on top of, I admit and I'm sure there's a better way but it should be facilitated in IOS by Apple.

 

[Ledsteplin]

Re: Why are all my pictures displayed in multiple folders on my PC.

Y'all may be going in circles with this file album thing. My friend said this about it.
"It's always been this way. To the end user, Apple's method of cataloging songs and pictures has no apparent organization when viewed in these file system folders. It doesn't really matter because Apple doesn't intend for them to be viewed or accessed by users this way. Music is organized through the iTunes app, so those folders are never visible to the user (unless you jailbreak and get into the file system) and the photos folders don't come up when using the regular methods of importing photos to a Mac or PC. it does not represent an album. Restoring and what not is completely unnecessary. As soon as you start taking/saving pictures, they will be thrown into multiple folders again. This is how Apple organizes photos and you can't change it. Importing them through the normal methods on a Mac or PC won't bring up these folders, so it's a non-issue for most people."

I'll take her word for it.

 

[Baralan]

Your friend is correct in explaining how Apple "organises" folders but is wrong in saying that you cannot do anything with them or the pics on a PC. I sync my IPhone with ITunes on my Win 8.2 laptop, while syncing the IPhone shows as an external device in Explorer. I double click on it and explore to the DCIM which contains all the randomly named IPhone folders, select the latest one and open it then copy all the images from the last time I did this and paste them into the relevant folders in My Pictures on my laptop just as I would copying images through Explorer from other sources. The only difficult part is identifying which is the latest folder when IOS decides the previous one is full.

 

[Maybedog]

Your friend is also wrong about it always being this way. I've been copying my pictures from the iphone for years, ever since Verizon started selling the iPhone 4, which was a few months after it's release. Up until fairly recently, there was only one folder that had the photos in it, although it was nested deeply, you only had to click something like 3 times to get all your photos including the high resolution ones. I have never use itunes for my iphone photos, just Windows Explorer.

Now there is one folder for every hi-res picture and you have to figure out which folder contains the low-res ones. Since I have hundreds of pictures on my phone, it's really not realistic to require me to go through each of those folders to find the combined folder let alone the high res version of a specific photo I want.

I think it's true that Apple changed it to be harder to get the photos off the phone without using their products. It looks like I'm going to have to start using itunes for photos, too.

 

[Greg Rajkiewicz]

What do you mean you can't change that? You can change it by getting a Samsung phone. I am...
I'm tired of Apple/Iphone always coming up with ways to make things difficult, and I 've always hated having to use ITunes to update my music.

 

[Constantin Cadar]

*** pot concentra toate imaginiile,foto,importate de pe aparatul foto intr-un singur dosar?

 

[rich95121]

well i guess im nnot the only one that is pissed about these stupid folders i have 768 something folders ! well once again apple and windows both suck with all there stupid apps that they force us to use , that are complete **** ! now i know why everyone jailbreaks there apple anything because then they can use software that works because the ones apple forces us to use are **** ! well one way to get rid off 760 whatever folders delete them and everything in them thank apple idiots ! first chance i get im rooting jailbreaking what ever they call it now ! thanks for nothing and maybe ill just go back to landline and a camera until someone can get this **** right !

 

[rich95121]

droid has there issues too , its called google nazi's ! or apple nazi's they both suck !

 

[rich95121]

one would think after all this time apple would fix this issue but ,there is the issuse they cant get anything right ! i dont know if anyone has noticed every ipod iphone is different and not one of them works the same as previous one nor is it any better then the last one ! here is the reason they wont make a iphone ipad or anything the way we want it ! they totally know what needs to been done they can do it but if they make the perfect phone they would kill the sales end of apple and basically put them selfs out of a job ! ! they will never do anything correctly and they will never fix **** ! so all you can do is not go buy there new **** if we dont buy the " latest and greatest apple crap " maybe just maybe the will do something right cause next gen is not going to be any better then the lat piece of junk the released !

 

[theomgirl]

Deleting With This Method?

I followed the steps and they worked perfectly. I can see the pics in order and copy then easily. BUT....when I've copied them to my PC, I want to delete them off my phone. When I try the CTRL + DEL method, it highlights them, says it's deleting them, and when it's done they're still there in the folder. Any idea how to delete them once copied using this method?

Thanks!