I have a new Apple iPhone and am having fun with it, but I can’t figure out how to download photographs or pictures onto it. Is there some trick or technique? Also, in case it makes a difference, I don’t use iPhoto to manage my photo albums.
Like getting photos onto a video iPod (see how to add photos to your ipod), the only way you can add pictures to your new Apple iPhone is through iTunes. But iTunes is a bit fussy about what it will and won’t sync. You can choose a “roll” of pictures from iPhoto but since you — like me — don’t use iPhoto, you’ll need a workaround to get this going.
Fortunately, it’s pretty darn easy!
What I do to manage my iPhone photo album is create a new folder in my Pictures folder called “iPhone Pic Sync” and then copied the photos I wanted to have on the iPhone there (you copy a file, rather than moving it, by holding down the Option key while dragging and dropping):
Notice here that I not only have a new folder in my Pictures directory, but I also dragged the folder onto the left navigational shortcuts area in the Finder too, so the folder is easily accessible anywhere I’m working on my Mac. Saves finding that folder again, ya know!
Now you can simply drag and drop images in that you’d like to have on your phone and eventually you’ll have a nice little library, as I do:
When you have a bunch of pics you like, hook up your iPhone to your computer and after it autosyncs, it’ll show you the Summary view of how things are set up:
Click on the “Photos” tab here and by default it’ll offer up the ability to sync your iPhoto library:
You don’t want that, though, you want to choose “Select Folder…” from that pop-up and select the new iPhone photo sync folder. Once you do that, it’ll look like this:
That’s all there is to it. Click on “Sync” and you’ll see that iTunes is smart, it even adjusts images to work optimally on the iPhone. The sync flies past:
and now your iPhone has a spiffo new photo library of the images you desire.
Want to add or delete images? Just add or delete them to your new iPhone Pic Sync folder and they’ll automatically be synchronized with your iPhone every time you plug it in.
Still learning about your iPhone? We have lots of iPhone help here on the site!
Really helpful – Thanks a lot!
Oops, I meant it stops abruptly to the right of the screen.
Both, Dave. On the left hand column, after clicking on my phone, my options are ‘music, movies, tv shows’.
On the top of the window, after clicking on the phone, the options, in order from left to right, are ‘summary, info, applications, ringtones, music, movies, tv shows, podcasts, iTunes U’.
The iTunes screem seems to stop a bit abruptly to the left, and I wonder if there would be a ‘photos’ tab beside iTunes U, but there’s no left to right scroll bar, I can’t drag the screen further, and my screen resolution is at max.
I’ve googled this problem a bit, and it seems to be somewhat common, but I haven’t found a straight answer yet. Thanks!
Jeff, I’m sure you’re not an idiot. 🙂 Are you looking on the left column or have you clicked on your iPhone in the left column and are then looking at the set of tabs that show up along the top of the iTunes window? (yeah, the UI could do with a bit of tweaking)
Hi, I might be being an idiot, but I have no ‘photo’ tab on my iTunes, so I can’t follow your instructions. Under “Jeff’s iPhone”, I have ‘music’, ‘movies’, and ‘tvshows’ but no tab for ‘photos’, nor do I have one under the summary. What’s going on?
Hey Dave, thanks for solving the riddle for me! It took some mucking around, but I finally got there. There’s a Grande Soy Chai coming your way – I threw in one for your life partner, too, but it’s up to you whether you share or not!! Have a fab day. x
Thank you Sir.
Michael Fraietta
Here’s a good question. I had the unfortunate issue of my hard drive crashing! Iam a photographer and had invested a lot of time sizing images and creating folders for them. SO now those originally sized images and folders are no more but they are on my phone. I’ve tried several methods to access these images with no luck. iTunes doesn’t show them on it drop down listing for the phone. iTunes only sees the camera roll as well as all other programs I have tried. ANY IDEAS?
Thanks!
Hi Dave,
This worked fine. But I cant seem to transfer pics from my photo albums in iphone to other PCs. Transferring the pics from the camera roll is easy breezy.. but from photo album to PC is quite a challenge. Any solution?
Thank you for the very helpful info, saved a lot of time and frustration.
Glad everyone likes their iphone. I found the task of updating to be nothing as described by Apple and ridiculously time consuming. During a recent connection to my pc to do a backup and update, it deleted ALL of my pics and ALL of my 137 contact info! NEVER again will I plug this damn thing in for an update, I just don’t have the time for this crap! Thank God these incompetent software clowns do not build cars… they’d be putting millions of people in the hospital!
What format photos and size are downloadable into one’s Iphone:.Tiff; .jpeg only, etc. Thanks for the great page.
Thank you so much!
Every time I try to sync photos it wants to do a full backup/sync of my phone first. This is annoying and unnecessary. Immediately upon clicking sync on the bottom inside the photos tab the progress bar in the top of my iTunes window begins copying my applications (basically it starts a full sync)–with over 150 apps this is not something I want to do every time I want to add a few photos. I know you can’t simply drag & drop pictures like you can with songs (oh how I wish you could), but is there a way to add pictures without syncing and backing up all 30 GB of my phone?
Olu, you basically can’t do that without a lot of work. If you’re on a Mac, there is a way to use GarageBand to turn music into a ringtone, but honestly, for my iPhone, I just use a third-party ring tone app called iToner (see ambrosiasw.com).
Michael, I don’t know of any way to password protect photo albums, but check the app store, there might well be an app that offers that kind of security. Now about those nude photos of your girlfriend… 🙂
I have several folders besides the Comera Roll folder. The other folders have pictures i don’t want people to see. Is there a way to lock certain picture folders on the iPhone 3Gs?
thank you,
michael
How do I use the music from my itune library as my ringtone?I need your advice badly. Thanks
Thanks Dave I really appreciate your help.
It is poorly worded, but you won’t lose the photos you’ve taken with your phone itself, that just affects the other photo albums…
I plugged in my iphone and went to the photos tab in itunes to update the folder i had created i got this message, “Are you sure you want to sync photos? All existing photos and albums on the iPhone will be replaced with photos and albums from the current photo library.”
i don’t want to lose the photos that i have taken with my phone (the “camera roll”) and it doesn’t give me the option to choose the folder. any suggestions?
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, finally a real solution that a monkey can understand… AND you can categorise images into folders within the iPhone Pic Sync and it appears on the iphone. I have done away with iphoto, which is incredibly moody and temperamental… for the simplicity that it brags, I have found it to be quite a pain in the rear.
Also done away with extracting images from iPhone using preview and image capture (which are equally pains in the rear) as my iPhone doesn’t always show up depending on how many photos I have on the iPhone (is 1838 images a problem?) or the kind of photos I have (file format NOT subject)… issues seem to arise either through quantity or file kind??? who knows, so have bought PhotoToMac ($2.49 from app store) and haven’t looked back, don’t need a cable either just any wifi connection and a shared folder will do. Both issues solved, now I can get on with living my life.
Also thanks to the person above who explained how to move a photo into Camera Roll, great tip, thanks.
I have a PC and have previously been able to transfer pictures from my Camera Roll on my Iphone to my PC. All of a sudden my computer does not recognize my device when I connect it. It automatically connects itunes and syncs but I do not want to sync until I am able to put the camera roll pictures on my pc.
Any suggestions
What up dave
I just bought me a 3G Iphone this week.I am going to Jamaica Dec 10 thru Dec 20. I want to use my Digicel sim cardin my Iphone. The Digicel sim card works great in my Palm Treo 750
Worked like a charm! Thanks so much!
Good news! I figured it out. I was missing the step that says “Select Folder” It actually says “Choose Folder” on my computer. As soon as I did that it gave me a window to click on the folders. Thanks so much for your very precise directions. I just had to reread it more slowly to get my answer. It is most kind of you to post these for people. Thanks for being such a nice guy.
Sweet regards,
fudge4u
One additional note to my iphone dilemma of not being able to make the folders show up on the summary. I did add subfolders to my IPhone sync folder would that matter? I tried taking some of the photos out of the sub folders, but the iPhone Sync folder does not show up-NONE of them show up. ): So sad. Hope you can help! Sweet regards, Fudge4u
I have a new iphone 3gs. I did everything you said and I cannot get the folders to show up after I go to the sync summary. I don’t even get the iPhoto folder. All I get is a Pictures folder. I sure hope you can help. I am lost. Here I am with this great new tool and can’t figure out how to bless the grandparents with photos of the kids when we’re together.
Sweet regards,
Fudge4u
need to transfer pics from sd card to iphone. thanks…dave
tring to download pics from cuddyback camera trap,SMI card directly to iphone…is it possible?
dave
I like your approach, Dave, and linked to it on my blog about iPhone photo management at occmac.blogspot.com.
EASY!!! Thank you! I have a PC and I did not have a problem at all!
Another way to take photos off your iPhone is a simple app: WiFiPhoto. You can pick and download multiple photos in a single zipped file to any computer over a network in wifi. You can set compression quality to best fit your needs. Hope it helps.
thanks!
My iPhone 3G has only connected in the wifi I have in my home once, did I hit some setting I should not have? It does not even see that I have a wifi any more
Ok not sure if anyone cares but I found a way to get photos not taken with iPhone to show up in camera roll. Previously to getting my iPhone I had sent an mms text to my email as the recipient, I checked my email from my iPhone (the app at the bottom) open the email viewed the photos and then had 3options 1of which wAs save files, which were 3 photos , they then were now in my camera roll. Sorry if this is old news it’s just that I read somewhere that any photos not taken with iPhone u could not get to show up in camera roll, you can only access th through photos app. Not that it’s that big of a deal however someone did ask how to get photos not taken with iPhone into camera roll and so eons replied if could not be done. And if photos are in roll, when u sync there is no chance of losing those photos as there is when they are in regular photos app. Ttfn
thx very much!
how do i transfer photos from mac TO camera
thanks ??
I’m still confused…How can you transfer pics from my windows based pc to my 2g iphone…I have cydia, safari and installer on the phone…I’m better with stereo’s than software…Thanks
hi i have iphone 2g i cant see any pictures when i use wifi on my iphone in my mails i am having already in my inbox,
How do you sync ringtones on the new iphone3g and NOT end up with duplicates on the phone itself – despite m4r files showing and playing uniquely in iTunes?
I’ve had an iphone for about 4 months, and have always been able to move pictures from it to my pc by syncing phone with computer. Now, when I sync, it updates contacts, calendar, etc. but not pictures. What am I doing wrong? Thanks for any help you can give me!!!
With the latest 2.X firmware, you can download photos from Safari by holding your finger on any image.
The photo then appears under ‘photos’ on the ipod.
Very helpful. Thanks!
thanks for this! it worked for me the first time but the next time i plugged in my iphone and went to the photos tab in itunes to update the folder i had created i got this message, “Are you sure you want to sync photos? All existing photos and albums on the iPhone will be replaced with photos and albums from the current photo library.”
i don’t want to lose the photos that i have taken with my phone (the “camera roll”) and it doesn’t give me the option to choose the folder. any suggestions? i find it all rather confusing!
Turns out it worked. The pics are on my iPhone in the “Photos” application. I was looking at the “Camera” app in the camera roll.
Thanks for the tips.
These instructions don’t work for me either. Is it because I’m on a PC and these instructions are Mac? In the folder iPhone Pic Synch all I get is a folder created and called iPod Photo Cache and then a whole bunch of folders called F00 – F45 and a small file called “Photo Database”. Meanwhile, the pics on the iPhone have not been updated with the pix I put in the iPhone Pic Synch folder.
Great! Thanks for this, was really stuck with a seemlingly simple task.
these instructions for how to synch photos from iphone to mac do not work for me. I have done these steps but then on my Finder folder under iPhone Pic Synch i get a folder created and called iPod Photo Cache and then a whole bunch of folders called F00 – F50 with this folder called Photo Database and this error Last login: Mon Jul 21 10:47:16 on ttys000
sc0102a-dhcp175:~ debbieg$ /Users/debbieg/Pictures/iPhone\ Pic\ Sync/iPod\ Photo\ Cache/Photo\ Database ; exit;
-bash: /Users/debbieg/Pictures/iPhone Pic Sync/iPod Photo Cache/Photo Database: cannot execute binary file
logout
[Process completed]
No because the synchronization only concerns your iPhone’s photo library, not the camera roll.
By the way, if you want to download photos to your iPhone individually, you might consider one of these iTunes alternatives for photos:
http://manageipodphotos.wordpress.com/ipod-photos-management-alternatives
If i sync a folder will it automatically erase the photos i have taken on my phone?