4 ms·
Ask HN: How to export photos from iPhone to non Mac computers
OK - I am getting abit stressed in not finding a way to export a large number photos and videos from my iphone 14 to ANY computer that is not running the latest Mac OS or using the cloud. How can I transfer my camera filea to a linux or windows machine? I have tried copying from explorer (failed with “catastrophic failure”) and with itunes (have a backup but no actual files anywhere).
Does anyone have a simple solution to do this? Without buying an Apple computer ….
- deafpolygon 2y agoIf your photos are stored locally, and you're using Windows - you can just plug it in via USB and Windows will recognize it as a camera storage. Your phone will probably prompt you to allow access. Be careful, though, if your photos are stored in iCloud Photo Library - they will be stored locally as smaller versions of themselves, so you won't be getting the originals. If that's the case, use iCloud for Windows and opt in the Photos bit. You can then copy the originals from there. It's slow but it works.
- sema4hacker 2y agoI would .zip them up and email them as Gmail attachments.
- ustad 2y agoThats not going to work with >10000 files (~100GB total).
- sema4hacker 2y agoI had a feeling the proposal would get you to reveal what "a large number" was.
- ustad 2y agoWe are on HN. Large is large ;)
- figomore 2y agoI use LocalSend to share files between iOS and Linux. I don’t know if it works well for a lot of files. I use the flatpak version on Linux.
- ustad 2y agoThanks for the tip - will check the app.
- tamimio 2y agoI tried most of these apps, LANdrop was the best so far, and also it reserves the original image with no compression or changing meta data. Edit: I tried it on all platforms, linux, windows, android, and iOS. You would need both connected to the same lan.
- ustad 2y agoThanks for the tip. Have downloaded the app and will test it out.
- asdefghyk 2y agoI previously used IOS phone app photosync Worked OK for me
- ustad 2y agoThanks for the trip but it seems to be trialware.
- achempion 2y agoCan you use iCloud for Windows app?
- ustad 2y agoAs I said - I’m not using icloud.
- cssanchez 2y agoLinux should be able to port over files over USB, FTP or local lan using apps already mentioned. I think I've previously used Dolphin over USB and FTP (server on iphone) for backups.
- cpach 2y agoAFAICT you should be able to do this with a regular Windows 10 computer. Docs: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/import-photos-and-videos-from-an-iphone-to-pc-2e4e4db4-4c3d-041c-b88f-3ee4358dd95e https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/import-photos-an... https://support.apple.com/en-us/120267 https://support.apple.com/en-us/120267 (see the section Import to your Windows PC)
- ustad 2y agoSeems like I don’t know the magic spell. I’m constantly getting “catastrophic failure” alert boxes when I try to use the explorer window for file transfer. The “import” functionality seems to work but is so slow that I gave up. I cannot have my phone and computer tied up for who knows how long. And it fails if my phones display goes to sleep.
- sandreas 2y agoHad the same issue and wrote a blog article about it. A bit dated but it should still work (Linux): https://pilabor.com/blog/2022/01/access-and-recover-files-from-an-iphone-on-linux/ https://pilabor.com/blog/2022/01/access-and-recover-files-fr...
- mejutoco 2y agoDropbox works
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- palidanx 2y agoI use owl files to transfer to windows 11 over internal wifi https://www.skyjos.com/owlfiles/ https://www.skyjos.com/owlfiles/ The kicker is you have to create a local user account lusrmgr.msc then when you share the folder, give that person full permissions and security as specified here https://www.skyjos.com/owlfiles/help/windows/help_windows.html?section=settings_win11 https://www.skyjos.com/owlfiles/help/windows/help_windows.ht...