I have an iphone 12 mini that won't easily transfer photos and videos to free up space. As a result, I can't install any new apps or use the camera, and I'm constantly deleting thing I don't really want to delete.
When I plug the phone in to the PC via the USB cable, Windows recognizes it as a drive and it begins loading preview images in file explorer, but it loses the connection before I can transfer anything. I get the message "The device is unreachable", even though the phone still shows it is charging. This happens with both of my computers, running Windows 8 and Windows 10. I've tried using different cables and different ports, with no success.
I've discovered I can save photos one at a time to iCloud files, visit my iCloud drive via my PC's web browser, and download each file individually. The problem here is that without going through the cable transfer, the files maintain their original, weird Apple file types and aren't converted to more recognizable types. I can use Gimp to export each photo to a normal .png from the bizarre .heic format the iphone uses, but the whole process is extremely time-consuming. Furthermore, the videos don't play at all (even though they're .mov), and I don't have a way to convert them since nothing I have recognizes the encoding.
The most recent thing I've tried is saving the files to icloud, opening the "Files" app on my old iphone (which doesn't have the "unreachable" problem), and trying to transfer to the PC that way. This works for photos, but not for videos, since the icloud UI on the older iphone doesn't give me an option for "Save Video".
Has anyone else run into the "device unreachable" problem while transferring files, and is there a work-around?
Is there a way to easily get files off my iphone without a cable and get them into a PC-friendly format?
Best Answer
I've had this happen before when one of the files on my iphone was corrupt.
Try this. When the file explorer opens, change the view from "icons" to "details". That should stop explorer from trying to read every file and just present you with a directory listing.
From there, grab a few files at a time and copy them to your hard drive. Repeat until you either copy all files, or run into the file causing the problem.
I've also seen this if you try to copy the entire DCIM folder. It chokes on that. Go at least one level into the DCIM folder and begin copying files from there.
Once you have all of your pictures copied to your PC, then delete them from the phone.