You can use iPhoto to get the pictures off the phone.

I understand where your fear is coming from. If you do a restore on the phone, you will lose any pictures you haven't imported yet. It should really warn you about that specifically because most people don't consider that they have any valuable data on an iPod that didn't come from their computer, so it is always "safe" to do the restore. This changes with the iPhone because of the camera. (It also changes a little bit with games on the 5G iPod because there is the potential to lose your high score data, but most people care about their photos a lot more than their high score from a game.)

How getting the photos off my iphone for WindowsXP or Vista?

I discovered the answer to the above question. When you plug the iPhone into a Windows computer, it will show up in Windows Explorer as a disk drive. The only documents that will show up in Windows Explorer within the iPhone will be the "Camera Roll" photos that were taken with the iPhone. You can just drag them into a folder on the computer.

Hello is there way i can get the pictures from the iphone to the computer , not the ones in camera roll??

could someone please post an answer to the question above me, how can we get the photos off the iphone that are not in the camera roll(for instance a bunch of iphoto albums that are on the iphone but got deleted from the computer) please, thanks

I too want to know how to get my pictures that aren't in the camera roll back on my PC. I have 600mb of pics on my iphone that got lost on my Pc and I want them back without having to email them one by one...

Hi Dave,

thanks for all the useful stuff on your site... I've googled problems several times and found answers on your pages. V helpful.

I'm just dropping you a line to be a smart arse... you've got header-paper.jpg (your banner image) displaying 70 pixels wider than the image should be... is that on purpose for the jaggy text styling?

Cheers
Bill

Thank you Dave!
I found you site very simple, usable and usefull.

This aswer was so "obvious" that I really can't find the solution by myself but you gave me the right answer!

Thank you and congrats for your cool site! :-)

I'm also wondering how to get non-iphone-taken pictures off of my iphone. My hard-drive crashed and I lost all of my pictures. Fortunately, some were backed up on my iphone, but I want to get them off of there and on to my new computer -- any way to do it???

Hi, I used to be able to get pictures from my iPhone by the means above, however for some reason when I plug my iPhone into my computer, I click on my iPhone in my computer to just drag the pictures across and now it won't show any of them up, I'm really frustrated and hate technology as it is, please help :P

I have a very big problem with my iPhone.
I snap and capture images with my iphone camera but it doesn't display on the CAMERA ROLL folder. Does anybody know what i'm supposed to do about it.
Thanks

Pete, it looks like you might need to backup your phone data and "restore" your iPhone. See here:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1183455&tstart=0

Good luck, let us know how it goes!

I just had a similar problem to some of you, in which my hard drive crashed and i lost all my photos. i searched around on how to get them off my iphone and back on to my iphoto, and finally cam across this program. $20. its worth it.

http://www.jaredmendelewicz.com/blog/how-to-get-photos-music-notes-and-data-off-of-your-iphone/

My computer was stolen and I needed to get photos (not in Camera Roll) from my iPhone. I just paid the $20 for the PhoneView program and it worked like a charm.

Thanks

Kevin

It is worth noting that Dave's solution also works on Mac OS 10.4.11. Thanks Dave.

I found "Image Capture" (you didn't mention it was an application, so I searched and found it) and tried what you suggested. When I click on download, however, nothing happens. Tried this with just one photo selected, as well as "Select All."

Any suggestions?

William, I readdressed this topic in another blog post that has more troubleshooting advice too. Hope this helps you out:

http://www.askdavetaylor.com/how_to_get_pictures_off_apple_iphone.html

if you are windows platform try "uTunePhotos" that can add,delete,export,rename, reorder,backup and restor phto albums and camera roll.

How do I get the photos off my iPhone(3g)? It does not show the photo folder it used to show every time i plugged my phone in.

Thanks

Can you retrieve a photo that you have accidentally deleted from your iphone?

i erase all setting and file in my iphone. but after erasing, the phone just showed apple icon (black background screen) for long time and shows no progress. How the iphone will de-activate? or any other should be done? pls help. tq

hello, im trying to download my pictures off my iphone to my computer windows xp, but when i plug it in nothing comes up, not even in my computer, they used to come up before i downloaded itunes, now absolutley nothing comes up, it is not even in my files no where to be seen, please help, no wizard comes up, i have tried everything.

Hey Thanks A LOT!!!!! Greg from Nov 8th 2007 HELPED ME A LOT!!!!!!! Thanks Again, it's too bad Windows did'nt run IPHONE! THX 4 the advice!!!

Looking for the iphone in Windows is EAZY!

I have vista. I was able precviously to just plug in my iphone and my pictures downloaded. I have tried all of your suggestions and nothing is download; I just went on a trip and have several photos I want to put on the computer. They are in the camera roll but will not go on my commputer. I have looked in windows explorer, etc.

Hi!

Iwas browing through the chain on how to download pics from my iphone to my laptop- I saw someone write that when plugged-in to a windows laptop it will show as disk drive and i can simply copy-paste the photos!! For some reason though I am not able to see any additional disk drives when I plug in my phone and dont know what to do- Could you please help/clarify!!??

a friend of mine dowload her pictures in my computer(HP) she has a mac. Now her camera is no longer working. How can you help me help her?

Thanks for this tip, now do you or anyone else out there know how to retrieve photos that you DIDN'T take on your iPhone from your iPhone. My computer died and I want to get the photos that I had previously sync-ed to my iPhone back onto my new MacBook.

Thank you so much. This app (image capture) is the easiest way ever to get all your pictures from your iphone to computer
it works great... and by the way the apple retail employees don't know ANYTHING!!!

Hello,
I erased the pics in my iphone using image capture, but now, after that when i try to make some photos they don't appear in the camera roll.
WHAT CAN I DO?
(The rest of the Photo albums are still there.)

Thanks,
Ja'el.

I made an app - PhotoToMac - to transfer iPhone camera roll photos to your Mac over WiFi.

More info about PhotoToMac: http://www.galarina.eu/PhotoToMac/Home.html

I just restored my iPhone back to factory settings and then downloaded my photos from iTunes back onto the iPhone. They are no longer in camera roll and now I cannot delete any photos. How do I delete photos on my iPhone now?

Thanks, Dave -- this was so super easy and helpful! I just downloaded 1K photos off my phone in about 5 minutes. You're a lifesaver. :)

~ M

Hi Dave,

1. What are the steps to be followed to download photos from my iphone to my HP laptop with XP windows .

2. Steps to download songs from my Computer into IPHONE.

Please provide me step by step procedure for my above questions to my mail id yajaman_83@hotmail.com. Thank u sir.

Regards,
Y.Pravin.

you can take a screenshot of each photo on your ihone and it will appear in ur camera roll

Wow. I love you. I detest iphoto with a passion, the image capture thing works amazingly.

Thank you so much!

Help!!! I can take pictures on my iPhone 3G, and i can download them off....BUT....the new ones do NOT show up on the camera roll on the phone. They are there, but I cannot see them on my phone - why not????? Pls help!!!!

hi,i can't transfer photos from my iphone(camera roll) to my windows vista and i have installed itunes but it ddoesn't seem to help.pls help.thanx in advance

Hey! Serious problem... I bought a new HP Pavilion Entertainment PC with Windows Vista. But now when i connect my I phone to it it just opens Itunes and not anything that says download photos... like my old laptop did... Now is there any way I can get my Pictures down?
Thanks for the Help

Hi, thanks for this tip, works great, simple & effective file transfer!

I really hate i tunes sync thing & eventually worked out how to turn it off.

nothing is showing up when i connect my iPhone 3GS into my windowsXP laptop. there's the iPhone icon as a drive but no files/pictures.

thanks,
Sirjune

Dave just upgraded to new iphone and cant get photos off my old iphone. i thought this was not probem but on old iphone i see there is no service up top. i was told i could still get these photos off old iphone to itunes?

Pete, plug your phone into your computer and - if you've a Mac - run ImageCapture. It should see all the photos on your old phone and let you copy them onto your computer itself.

thanks so much for the info; how funny to realize i didn't know how to get pics off my iphone other than email...
muchos gracias

I followed the instructions for the XP Camera Wizard, downloaded my camera photos from the camera roll to a folder, now all the pictures show up in the folder, HOWEVER they are no longer in the order (sequence) they were taken. They are now in no order. Its as if the pictures have been downloaded based on some other sort order. Nothing is in sequence. I now have to go in and sort them and rename them to keep the order they were taken. Why did the download do this?

I have noticed a number of people have been trying to get photos OFF their iphone (that AREN'T in "Camera Roll") and onto their computer.

Dave, you suggested "Image Capture" but that seems to only select the photos that are in "Camera Roll" NOT my various Menus/albums of photos on my iphone.

Is there something I need to select in Image Capture so that it will let me copy the other images across?

I can't believe how easy that was, Dave. Thanks for the brain-dead tutorial!

Cheers!

What if you have a jailbroken iphone and a Mac running Tiger? How can I pull my pictures that I've taken off of my iphone. And no, I've shut off Internet services on my iphone. Too $.

Dude -- thank you so much. Like someone else above I detest iPhoto. Just got the iPhone and was starting to despair of how to get the photos off. (Had expected to be able to see the disk image on desktop and just drag and drop like my digital camera.

Why can't apple just tell us about Image Capture in the iphone manual?!

Cheers!

Hi Dave, I have a problem that others here seem to be having, but if it was answered, I couldn't find it in the comments. I use windows vista, and when I connect my iphone, the camera roll folder doesn't open up automatically as it used to. I've no idea why it stopped doing this. The drive isn't there when I check 'my computer' either. How do I get my camera roll pics into my laptop?? :(

Ok, Mine and my wifes iPhones wont even show up in XP with the new iphone versions, yet my bro-inlaws jailbroke phone does still?

I am using xp and I have the same problem as many of the windows users above mention.

I used to be able to get the photos off by just connecting my iphone and camera and picture wizard would ask to transfer the pictures. Last month this just stopped working. I plug in my iphone and the camera wizard doesn't even pop-up anymore. Going through "My Computer" the device will show up but when I right click and choose to export pictures it says the device is busy and could not be completed.

This is a very frustrating issue as I am continuing to use the phone for pictures and they are growing in number quickly with no solution to get them off. Dave, please help us windows users solve this problem.
Thanks

hi i just wondered how do i just delete pictures off the iphone as i have no interest in keeping certain pictures but cant get rid of them i know how to delete the camera roll pictures but not the photo library ones can anyone please help thank you

Justin, I'll work on a new article on how to work with photos on your iPod / iPhone (it's the same process) from Windows iTunes. That's your answer too, Tracey: You can only manage the photos within iTunes, not on the phone. And yes, it's clunky.

Here is a good article for Windows user. I just save my iphone photo using the suggested method.
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/hack-your-iphone-back-up-your-data/

you are the Legend DAVE

i lost my photos by sync, how do i get them back?????

tks for the clear directions Dave; the Mac is new to me as a former W user.

Hello!
I was going bananas trying to figure out how to transfer photos from my iphone to my computer (XP, I'm sorry to say). After reading all the above answers I was not getting any nearer a solution.
But I found a way and I hope it will help others:
Go to My Computer. My iphone shows up as a camera. Double click on it. A box named '[Your name] iPhone' comes up with nothing in it. Click on 'Get Pictures from Camera' in the 'Camera Tasks' menu on the upper left. Voila!
The next time I did this the photos automatically uploaded on to my screen as soon as I double clicked on the camera symbol in 'My Computer'. I hope it helps others.
Thanks for a great website by the way...
Pierre

Ok. I know this has been asked a lot, but I have Windows 7 and when my Iphone sync'd, it took all the photos from the computer and copied them onto my Iphone. Is there a way to get those photos off my Iphone. And how do I stop them from getting put on my iphone?

hi - im not all that IT minded, however i run a windows laptop and here's how i downloaded my photos from my iphone to my laptop.
1. plugged in my phone to my laptop
2. went to Start, my computer which showed my iphone as a drive, right click on the iphone icon and select 'import pictures' and it imports the lot in one hit onto your laptop.

hope this helps.

GOOOTTT ITTTTTT!!!

Download "DiskAid". Go to Media Folder at bottom left. Click Photos. Click Thumbs. Download all .ithmb files to your hardrive (drag and drop). Download "File Juicer." Drag and drop .ithmb files into provided box and win!

Hi--I'm trying to save all the photos on my 3GS camera roll but can't get them to show up on my PC (Windows XP). I connect my iphone and it opens itunes but doesn't show up in my windows explorer. I connected another older version iphone and it showed up in windows explorer right away and I could copy the photos. How can I get my iphone to show up in explorer so I can save my photos.

Go to the app store and for $1.99 you can get Tunaverse. Download it to your Iphone or Itouch. Then go to your machine, go to Tunaverse.com and download their Cinq application (MAC or PC.) Simple install...and you are all set. You Iphone photos will automatically be sent to your machine and as an added benefit, all of your photos on your machine are always accessible on your Phone or Itouch...every single image...regardless of whether it came from your phone or from a camera to your machine.

thank you thank you thank you =)

Wierd iPhone to XP bug / "feature"

If you're ability to download photos from your iPhone 3g to Microsoft applications has suddenly stopped working, even though your iPhone syncs fine with iTunes, check carefully whether there are any pics in your camera roles that were not created by your iPhone's camera, e.g. email or web downloads.

I lost many hours chasing out this problem and finally got the critical resolution from Apple telephone support.

Prior to removing the "offending" photos from my iPhone role, the symptoms were that my iPhone was only recognized properly by iTunes, while the MS operating system (e.g. Explorer / My Computer, Windows Scanner & Camera Wizard, Picasa, Kodak EasyShare, etc.) would usually fail to see the iPhone when connected. When they did see it as a device, they would all eventually timeout with a failure to connect, or a report that the device was busy.

Very strange behavior, but hopefully this will save a few folks hours of their life and associated frustrations.

i totally agree with 'Posted by: Steve at March 14, 2010 9:13 PM'

it totally works!

thanks steve! *hugs*

my iPhone doesn't show up in my iPhoto, how can I make it show? i want to import photos from my iPhone.

Thanks.

Hello everyone,
We just released Photo Transfer, an iPhone app that lets you transfer photos from your iPhone to your computer touch over wifi.

The app it's super simple to use and makes transferring photos ver easy only using a web browser. You can also transfer photos from your computer to your iPhone or from one iPhone to another.

I hope you can check it out and find it useful:

http://www.phototransferapp.com/

Let us know if you have any comment or suggestions.
Cheers,

Enrique R
Photo Transfer App

This is a pretty vague guide, really you should have saved yourself the trouble unless you were going to give all the details.

Is image capture an application? Do i have it already, is this the apple way to do it. There is a camera on the iphone.. what is the recommended way to get images to your computer?

Jez, well, yes, Image Capture is included on every Mac and has been part of Mac OS X for a long time. Plug in your phone -- which has a camera -- kick off Image Capture and your phone appears, then you can pick and choose which picks to pull off, easy as can be!

Hi,

I just wanted to say thanks for posting this answer, I had no idea how to get pictures off an iphone without mailing them to yourself either and this helped a lot! Cheers!

- J

I am still frustrated. I took all the emailed photos and everything else that might be objectionable out of my camera role. Sometimes my iphone is recognized, but no photos can be downloaded to my XP because windows says it is busy. Why is this happening? Even if picasa sees the iphone, it wont acquire any photos. it used to work perfectly and automatically as soon as i plugged in my 3G.

Hi Dave. I have tried to sync my iPhone with the new MacBook 10.6.3 and I have been unsuccessful. Image Capture fails to recognize my phone as a camera. Can you please help me?

Gary, that's an odd one. I'd suggest that you take your iPhone and MacBook into an Apple Store and have one of their team help you out. Let us know what they figure!

My iPhone is not recognized by my computer, Image Capture, nor iPhoto. It does show up in iTunes though. I searched for months trying to get videos and photos off my iphone... I finally was able to with DiskAid. I used the Mac version, but there a PC one too.

My iphone still isn't recognized by the programs mentioned above, but at least I was able to get the video and photos off. I even tried restoring my iphone, but that still didn't work. I tried deleting the preference files that some other blogs mention doing... I'm going to take my Mac and iPhone to the Apple Store to see what's going on.

Download diskaid. Get the pictures off the iPhone. Clean up all non iPhone camera pictures and you will regain the my computer capability. I've searched for a solution for a week. This is it. Sadly you wont be able to keep the porn you downloaded on the phone but it will be on your pc.

I plugged in my iPhone to a PC, copied my photos from my iPhone to my PC and recently lost all data on my PC. When I plug my phone back in to copy the pictures again it says there are no pictures on my camera. When i go on my iPhone there are photos there but my Microsoft Picture and Scanner does not seem to pick them up. what can i do in order to get my photos from my iPhone back onto my PC?

AWESOME - Thanks for this. I don't take many pics w/my iPhone because the camera locks it up. But I do have a few and wanted to pull them down. After upgrading to Snow Leopard, I lost a BUNCH of fotos, through complete incompetence on my part. So thank for this help page, Dave!

I had an iTouch which I use primarily for contacts and calendar. I synced the iTouch to my Windows Vista HP and all the pictures in my laptop transferred to my iTouch.

I've now bought an iPad and have tried unsuccessfully to get the addresses, photos and calendar to the iPad from the laptop. HELP. All the pictures say is "optimizing", but I really could care less for the pictures. I want the addresses and calendars. HELP. (I don't have Outlook Express in my laptop.)

Steve's solution worked perfectly for me. (Posted by: Steve at March 14, 2010 9:13 PM)

My symptoms: I would connect my iphone and it synced fine with itunes. But in 'My Computer' the device was only recognized as "Mobile Device" instead of "iPhone". And when I opened the mobile device the window was completely blank - no ability to download images at all.

As soon as I deleted 3 images that I had saved from an email into my Camera Roll it completely solved the problem. (Once I disconnected and reconnected the iPhone).

Thanks Steve!

Dave you are a Godsend. I can't believe how simple your solution was for using ImageCapture to download photos off iPhone onto a Mac. Bravo. Simple and worked like a charm.

Thank you so much.

Darrin

Hi Dave,
I have been trying to delete pictures from iphone library, not the camera roll. I want them them deleted, not on my computer. Please help me, my computer has crashed so i need to be able to do it from my phone without access to a computer.

Perfect.

Simple, exactly what I needed - grazie!

How to delete my photo from my iphone without connecting with computer, I downloud pic from my friend computer when she was here and now i want to delete photo how can i delete that photo, from my Iphone please help me

how to i put photo's inside my iphone but in camera roll without itunes using PC windows XP and jailbroken iphone 3.o please SEND A MESSAGE TO MY E_MAIL THANKS in advance abdulrahman5002@hotmail.com

when i plug my iphone in i dont even get the option to upload my pics off the iphone... why is this?????? i cant figure it out partially cuz im mactarded but they sure dont make it easy to figure it out... any help would be great! thanks

plz help when i buy $30 reacharge in 10 mins they all go away im with optus .the internet using it..how do i turn off the internet help plz..but im NOT USING THE INTERNET AT ALL HOW MY $30 GO AWAY HELP. just help how to trun OFF

Just discovered your site, thank you, very easy to understand and solved my problem in a few moments. I will return!

If you're on Windows and at least can see your iPhone in Windows Explorer but cannot see any photos, then make sure to double click on the folder that you see on the right side of Windows Explorer. By doing that two times I eventually reached a folder called "100APPLE" where all my photos were stored. Yes, the order is different and the naming as well, compared to the ones I managed to sync via Itunes earlier.

For some reason the sync process only worked partially for me earlier, but this way I could at least get all my photos (beore now going to upgrade to IOS4 ;)

HI,
I have a similar issue, but the solutions suggested havent helped me. I just upgraded my iPhone to os 4. During the upgrade, it kept freezing during the backup (we're talking several hours). Eventually I gave up figuring that it backed up whenever I plugged it in so I should have a million backup files anyway. (Stupid assumption in hindsight). I went through with the upgrade which required a restore.

I was lucky in that it kept all my apps and contacts and even sms history. However, every single photo from the library and camera role was deleted off the phone. Now I know they must still be in the phone somewhere as itunes tells me I have 54MB of photos. I just cant find them. Photos that were attached to contacts have remained on the contact.

I read a suggestion where you could copy the files in a backup folder to a new folder, convert to jpg and recover photos that way. I did get a few back that way, but not the majority. Interestingly, the backup had photos I had deleted, as well as images I had never downloaded at all such as friends facebook profile shots!!

I would really like to know how to find my lost photos. ANy advice greatly appreciated.

BTW I am running windows XP Pro, and my iphone only shows up as a camera in my computer, no longer as an explorable drive

Thanks

I have the same problem but my computer is sony!!! so wat shud i do plz can u email it to mee, minoo_368@hotmail.com thnx

I have a 3G phone and was having similar problems to others posting here.

I used to be able to plug the 3G in and just drag and drog my photos off, as if it was a camera. Then the 3G suddenly didn't show up under My Computer or in Explorer.

Finally found the answer. I had applied a passcode key. When I removed the passcode key, then turned the 3G off and on again, it could now be seen under My Computer and in Explorer. I then successfully copied by photos off.

Hope this helps others with the same problem.

My iphone keeps telling me that its rebuilding/updating my library whenever i try to access my photos or take a pic. I have restored my phone twice but nothings changed.
How can i fix it?

i just open a ymail, that i can not download attach document.how do i go about it. because the application is not on my mail box,i relly need it. to enable me work effectivelt. thanks

Hi Dave! Thanks a lot for a very useful information. I didn't even know I have Image Capture on my iMac. Have a great one!

I'm having the same issue as Paul, I can't find any information on it at all.

I WANTED TO DELETE PICTURES THAT WERE NOT ON THE CAMERA ROLL BUT COULDN'T SO I WENT TO SETTING AND I SELECTED DELETE MEDIA AND DATA ON IPHONE AND SINCE THEN THE PHONE IS SORT OFF DOWNLOADING AND IT'S BEEN ALMOST 24HRS!!! PLS HELP

Paul and Shelby, I've seen that too with my iPhone. There's a setting somewhere or the other that says "don't optimize my photos", but I have to admit that I can't find it right now. Is it in iPhoto? I'll keep looking around...

Marjorie, sounds like you've wiped your phone clean. Not so good. Do this: plug it into your computer and select "Restore" from iTunes.

Hi Dave,
Your answer did not help me because I have no idea what image capture is. I am running with snow leopard and have all of the required software. It would be great if you could explain to me step by step, from connecting my iPhone, to downloading the pictures.