It seems the whole world and her brother wants to back-up photos from their iPhone or other Apple IOS device and retain that directory/folder/album structure and yet this is impossible using the standard operating system. This is probably an over long set of instructions, because I have a simple $3 solution below (spoiler: "Photo Transfer App"), but i want to rage against the machine a little first.
Why is this apparently simple task even a problem?
Well you need to be neutral to get this. "Neutral"? Well most people seem to hate Microsoft, they frequently idolise Apple and refuse to accept any short comings. The truth is that Google, Microsoft and Apple are all corporate monsters who provide pretty decent products and services, but always, of course, are seeking to get some tactical advantage over us, the enemy AKA "consumers".
Google want to collect up every last drop of data they can about you; in case they can find a use for it. Microsoft upgrade routinely to force the whole world to purchase their latest software (see here)... Apple... they lock down their software so you are always going to be short of disk space eventually (it keeps viruses down too mind you). You'll love the Apple product, but you are not going to prolong its life with a simple home upgrade.
So here is why Apple do not let you simply drag an album off your phone onto your PC or Mac. Because you could get by with an 8GB iPhone, keep copying the albums into a neat directory system on your PC and deleting them off the camera. The system Apple require us to use means that if you try to permanently retain that organised set of albums you have on your iPhone you will soon run out of space. If you sync it in their iCloud that will need you to keep upping your subscription to accommodate it. They are not so daft. Of course they will give you masses of database blaa blaa blaa on why they do it, but really... they want to fill up your device so you have to buy a bigger one with more memory.
The solution.
Well there are various ways of exporting your whole photo collection to a desktop, if you have a Mac its easy. You just use the Image Capture or iPhoto apps shipped with your new iMac. You find the device easily enough within those apps and then drag them across. ...but you loose the album structure completely. Now if you are a selfie type and have a couple of hundred photos of yourself in various settings then its really no problem, but I have thousands of images, collected from conferences (is that illegal?) and photoshoots where I copied photos from a proper camera to my iPad in the field. They are stored on the iPad by date, by location and by session and all sorts. Drag them to a PC with Image Capture, iPhoto or iTunes and that is all gone. I recommend everyone switches off the Photostream (iPhone settings) it is just a pain and unless you take only a few photos it is no long term help at all.
So I have tried several other "apps" that claim to solve the problem. Can't remember them all, but "Album transfer" etc. etc (OK I only tried 5 apps I think).
...then I found "Photo Transfer App". It costs about $2 or $3 and you need to install it on everything (you just pay once).
(1) So install it on the iMac, iPhone, iPad etc.
(2) Launch it on your device to back-up (e.g., iPhone)
(3) Launch it on your iMac (in my case, but I'm sure there is a "client" for windows too).
(4) Discover the device by clicking the button... and you need to unlock (if you use a passcode on your phone) and hit "trust" or something like that on the iPhone.
(5) Now the secret is to spot the "backup Album" option.
(6) Select the albums you want to backup and off you go.
A couple of caveats:
(a) It hangs occasionally, but if it restarts and can be made to pick up from where it left off.
(b) You will get multiple copies of your photos. I am going to investigate a work around for this, but it would seem that on my iPad some photos appear in multiple albums AND the "camera roll", therefore you will be backing up far more data than you need!! I am sure I'll find a way around this, but not yet!
[Addendum; I am not bothering with this now, but instead using the Mac program PhotoSweeper to delete the duplicates post-hoc; yes it costs approximately $10, but there are free versions available. I have tested this version and it works really well, I ignored all the iPhoto wizardry and simply ran it on my pictures folder].
[Addendum; I am not bothering with this now, but instead using the Mac program PhotoSweeper to delete the duplicates post-hoc; yes it costs approximately $10, but there are free versions available. I have tested this version and it works really well, I ignored all the iPhoto wizardry and simply ran it on my pictures folder].
(c) For me the default locations on an iMac are always rubbish, but if you set it in the Photo Transfer app, you need to do this each session. Safer to just create a Finder shortcut to the default location!! ...you are going to back it up properly onto another storage device anyway right?
Actually, having written this, a nice worked example is given here... with pictures ;-)
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