I friend of mine has no space left on her iPhone, so we bought a external harddrive and try to transfer the photos and videos from the iPhone to the harddrive. I am using windows 10.
I unlocked the phone and connected it to the computer, it appears in the file explorer.
I was able to move all files appearing in there to the external harddrive (I was unable to delete the folders btw, I had to open each folder and delete all files there…)
I thought that was it, but if I open the iPhone and go to photos then there are still thousands of photos, even though the folder "Internal Storage" appearing on windows is empty.
There are also still photos and videos on the iPhone which are not on the external harddrive.
What is going on?
How can I move all media from the iPhone to the external harddrive?!
I also tried it via iTunes, but the "synchronize" field is grayed out even after restarting windows.
I also tried to transfer all the files from iCloud to the computer, but there is a limit of 1000 Photos.
So I installed iCloud for Windows, but the software does not work. The sync is not triggered at all.
Update: I figured out that I have to trigger the synch by clicking on the icon on the down right in the tray. Now I can synchronize the data between the computer and the iPhone
Best Answer
iCloud for Windows
Download the software from Windows Store and sign in with the Apple ID photos are used with.
Open the options for photos and tick all the options which make original photos stored on the PC.
Go to Favourites in File Explorer and click download photos. Select all. Wait for the process to complete.
To remove photos from iPhone, turn off iCloud photo Library first.
Assuming you have Download originals set in iPhone photos preferences, Go to iCloud settings and turn off Photos. This ensures that all the changes made in iPhone will not be reflected in iCloud photo library and thus not on the PC.
Deleting on iPhone moves the photos in Recently Deleted and takes upto 30 days to delete if not done manually.
Now go to iCloud for Windows where hopefully all the items are stored locally by now. Turning off photos as it was turned on as said above, will delete all the photos in iCloud, free up storage and only place where your photos are will be PC.
Apple Data Download
Go to https://privacy.apple.com and sign in.
Request download for photos and videos or any other thing you want.
After being notified via mail, Get the compressed file and make sure that all the media is there.
Now whether iCloud for photos is turned off or not, deleting photos from iPhone removes them from iCloud too.
iTunes
To resolve the issue, installing latest version from Windows Store should help. Also Authorise the PC by going to Account Menu and entering the password on the prompt. If there's a prompt at iPhone while plugging in, tap "Trust". If still persists, there is a long list of actions at Apple Support Article to troubleshoot iTunes not recognising iPhone etc.
- I don't use windows so cannot answer about how to use usb cable to do the same.
- There one more answer at Originals from iCloud photo library to pc which uses python script.
- This question about transfer videos from iPhone to PC using cable had a bounty too. Answers suggest that Windows7 works perfectly, 10 doesn't. So this no longer remains a problem for Apple.SE.