Recovering pics from an iphone 4

[im from uranus]

About a year ago I put all my pics that were on my laptop onto my iphone because I wanted to format the hard drive. (about 1700 of them, thinking the phone's 32gb memory a cheap way of doing it) Since then I have been unable to upload the pics back to my laptop. I don't tend to 'sync' very often, I just use the phone as a phone for texts, calls etc. On my phone I have several albums with all the pics in but my laptop can't find them, it only shows me the pics taken by the phone's camera.

I hope to save these pics because they include ones of my Mum, who passed away last year, and were used by us at her wake on a big screen. I can get copies from my Brother but I'm just a bit miffed I can't save these.

Can anyone help? Many thanks if so.

[ORAC]

Photo Transfer App (http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/photo-transfer-app/id365152940?mt=8)

[marrylinedan]

The Camera Roll is for temporary storage. Photos/videos in the Camera Roll can and should be imported by your computer ASAP as with any other digital camera. The Camera Roll is also included with the iPhone's backup, which is updated by iTunes as the first step during the iTunes sync process.
If the photos/videos were not imported by your computer and your iPhone wasn't synced with iTunes since the photos/videos were captured by your iPhone, there is another way to recover photos from iPhone 4 (http://www.iphone-mac.com/how-to-recovery-photo-video-and-music-from-iphone.html).

[mixture]

thinking the phone's 32gb memory a cheap way of doing it

External hard drives are cheap, USB sticks are cheap.... why in gods name did you decide to use the a phone as a backup device ? Did you not consider the possibility of your phone getting lost or stolen.

Sorry to hear about the photos of your mum, but do yourself a favour for the future and put in place a reasonable backup routine. Its not hard, its not time consuming, its not expensive.

Consider it a lesson learnt that anything of critical importance should be backed up, then backed up again, and once more for good measure. Preferably on three different media (e.g. DVD, USB and external Hard drive). Three copies is the bare minimum for anything of any value, preferably with one copy stored at a different geographic location.

Anything non-critical, two or just one copy.

[Milo Minderbinder]

I've never used them, but there are a number of third party apps which claim to give direct file access to an iPhone

for instance
iExplorer - iPhone, iPad Music & File Transfer App - Mac & PC (http://www.macroplant.com/iexplorer/)
i-FunBox v2.1 | File Manager, Browser, Explorer, Transfer Tool for iPhone, iPad & iPod (http://www.i-funbox.com/)
iPhone Explorer Turns Your iPhone or iPod touch into a Disk Drive (http://lifehacker.com/5469718/iphone-explorer-turns-your-iphone-or-ipod-touch-into-a-disk-drive)

one of these may find your files

[Keef]

If you can still display the pix on your iPhone, they aren't lost ... yet!

iPhones have a nasty habit of deleting stuff when they think they need the space for something else, so get them off the phone and onto the PC. There are (as others have said) several apps to do that.

My iPhone is jailbroken, so it's very easy to move stuff. On a non-jailbroken one it's trickier but possible.

[mixture]

iPhones have a nasty habit of deleting stuff when they think they need the space for something else

Erm.... can you back up that unqualified statement please. Sound like a load of FUD to me.

As far as I am aware, if an iPhone/iPod/iPad is out of storage space it is out of storage space.

Unless you're deliberately trying to store stuff in volatile storage areas such as the RAM in which case its your own fault.

[Keef]

Back it up? If I back up the iPad or iPhone they only back up the stuff Apple think I should back up - which tends to be the Apps, which I could download again quite easily. The important stuff, such as my spreadsheets and word documents on there are NOT backed up - unless there's a setting somewhere that I've missed. iTunes is set to back up everything that can be backed up (but it doesn't).

I solved that problem. I never use the iPad/iPhone copy as master. If stuff disappears (as happened with all my documents when I updated the iPad to iOS6) I can reinstall from the PC. I learned that lesson the hard way. I've left the iPhone on iOS 5.something - that'll do for me.

Losing stuff - yes. Two examples:

I downloaded the Ordnance Survey maps for the area around where I live. I don't know where the OS app put them (that stuff is not described, nor am I given an option). Next time I wanted to use the OS maps: all gone.

I downloaded a Greek and a Hebrew Bible - something I use from time to time. Next time I wanted them: both gone.

That may be the fault of the Ordnance Survey and of the Bible Society for writing the apps wrong, I don't know. What I do know is that the equivalent software on my PC allows me to choose where stuff goes - and it stays there.

[mixture]

Apple knowledgebase article HT4946 "iTunes: About iOS backups"


iTunes will back up the following information
(long list here)
•App Store Application data including in-app purchases (except the Application itself, its tmp and Caches folder).
• Application settings, preferences, and data, including documents.



That may be the fault of the Ordnance Survey and of the Bible Society for writing the apps wrong

Given the above, quite possibly.

[bit-twiddler]

I take it people noticed the age of the first post :)