Ask HN: How to export photos from iPhone to non Mac computers

4 points by ustad a day ago

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 ….

sandreas 12 hours ago

Had 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-fr...

  • ustad 11 hours ago

    Thanks. May try your method.

    • sandreas 10 hours ago

      The advantage over an app based method is that you might just use rsync to sync all available files, the disadvantage may be that you might not be able to transfer all extra data (if you organised your stuff in albums etc.).

cpach 12 hours ago

AFAICT you should be able to do this with a regular Windows 10 computer.

Docs:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/import-photos-an...

https://support.apple.com/en-us/120267 (see the section Import to your Windows PC)

  • ustad 11 hours ago

    Seems 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.

cssanchez 16 hours ago

Linux 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.

  • ustad 11 hours ago

    FTP? how does that work? is it supported natively or thru an app?

    • cssanchez 9 hours ago

      There are free ftp server apps you can download and you access them using any ftp client on Linux.

tamimio a day ago

I 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 a day ago

    Thanks for the tip. Have downloaded the app and will test it out.

figomore a day ago

I 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 a day ago

    Thanks for the tip - will check the app.

asdefghyk a day ago

I previously used IOS phone app photosync Worked OK for me

  • ustad a day ago

    Thanks for the trip but it seems to be trialware.

achempion 20 hours ago

Can you use iCloud for Windows app?

  • ustad 11 hours ago

    As I said - I’m not using icloud.

sema4hacker a day ago

I would .zip them up and email them as Gmail attachments.

  • ustad a day ago

    Thats not going to work with >10000 files (~100GB total).

    • sema4hacker a day ago

      I had a feeling the proposal would get you to reveal what "a large number" was.

      • ustad a day ago

        We are on HN. Large is large ;)