My photo library has 12,000+ items in it and I want to copy them to an external USB pen drive having a capacity of 1TB.
I can select the photos, but it’s a serious pain because I have to swipe and hold steady to get them all selected. When I touch the action icon at the bottom of the screen photos blows off.
This is on a 12.9” iPad Pro 5th generation running current IOS.
Suggestions other than doing it peicemeal?
Thanks in advance!
@ssj152 , I haven’t tried this myself but quickly poked around various tapping options in iPad Photos. I need to dash to some errands so wanted to share these ideas before I forget! You might be able to test this on a small selection of images first to see if it works.
I take it the photos have been edited and you want to copy them externally in edited form. But if not, in Library view, you could pinch to make images as small as possible, tap Select, swipe across as many as possiblt to select them and from the Share icon choose Export Unmodified Originals or Save to Files, both of which lead to Files app, where you should be able to find an attached external volume such as a pen drive (I suppose current iPadOS will recognize a 1TB pen drive but I haven’t checked yet).
The resulting Export or Save, I haven’t tested, if the goal is then to put the photos on a Mac and into Photos app, perhaps these steps remove some data that would be essential for that, or maybe not.
Or, choose Add to Album… from Share or ‘circle with three dots’ icon. Once in an Album, tap the circle three dots icon and Share Photos > Save to Files option, where you could select the pen drive. Maybe these steps would result in a different output.
I looked for a ‘Select All’ but only found it in an Album View, not Library, so you would still have to go through the full selection first in Library to get them in an Album.
There might be other options in Help or Take Control Books.
Hope that helps!
A thought about storage media before you begin: if you are permanently moving your photos to an external device, seriously consider using either a SSD or HD. Why? Thumb drives are slower, less reliable, and can have much shorter lifespans.
Should I assume that the pictures only exist on your iPad and are not available from a Mac (possibly via iCloud photo sharing)?
For myself, the master copy of my pictures is all in a Photos library on my Mac. I sync that library (more specifically, certain albums and smart albums from it) to my iPhone. So it gets backed up when I back up the Mac. And if I want an additional copy, I can compress the Photos library to a zip file and copy that, or just copy it directly to a Mac-formatted (HFS+ or APFS) drive or disk image.
Should I assume that there is a reason why you can’t sync the iPad’s photos to a Mac library and make a copy of that?
If your Mac doesn’t have enough storage, you can try this:
Once this is done, the Photos library on the thumb drive will contain a copy of your entire photo library. If all you need is a backup, you’re done.
If you want to export some or all of these pictures separately (e.g. for sharing with others), you can use Photos to export some or all of the images. Either use the File → Export menu item, or drag/drop the pictures from the Photos app to a folder in the Finder.
If, however, there is a reason why this method is not acceptable, I’ll have to defer to others for a solution.
I am interested in how you do this, as I thought iCloud Photos syncd all or none, ie not possible to be selective. Are you using a different method or am I wrong? Thanks.
You are correct. I don’t use iCloud at all. It’s all via USB. The iCloud photo features are disabled on all my devices.
When I take pictures (on my phone or with a separate camera), I connect the device to my Mac and use the Photos app’s “import” feature to transfer the photos. Afterward, I delete them from the device.
Within Photos, have a system of albums (both smart and manual) for organizing the pictures.
When my phone is connected to the Mac (via USB), I select the albums I want to sync, and they transfer as a part of the sync process.
The result is that the Mac has everything and my phone has the subset of photos that I want to carry with me when I’m out and about.
Thanks for explaining.
An alternative is the (ancient) Mac app Image Capture. Connect the iPad with a cable, open Image Capture and select the iPad. Choose whether to import the photos into Photos (on the Mac) or a nominated folder (which could be on an external drive) then select “download all”.
You can also quickly select photos that you wish to import, including using the shift key for multiple selections.
I think the main ways of copying photos en masse from an iPad or iPhone is covered in this Apple article.
On my Linux laptop I simply mount the iOS device using ifuse and then rsync those to my local or attached storage.
I use an app called Photo Transfer App for moving photos to HDs for backup. Have had it for years; not sure about compatibility with latest OS versions. I could also use iMazing, just haven’t gotten around to trying that for photos yet. I don’t use Photos: I view them in Bridge.
I use an app called PhotoSync that can sync your photos automatically in the background. I have used it with Dropbox, but it has options for any other location. It is nice because my MacBook Pro has lost its connection to the internet, and to get it fixed I have to travel awhile to go to an Apple approved store. (It may not be fixable.) Anyway, PhotoSync is a great little app that has worked for me better than any other app.
Will it work with IOS on my iPhone and iPad? My iPhone is the desired source because it is larger and on a stand in front of my chair.
Thanks!
I first found PhotoSync on the iOS App Store, and it works on both my iPhone and iPad. I didn’t find a need to use it on my Mac, but the app can also sync to a Mac. It’s a fun little app.
Unfortunately what I need is to copy to a USB 1 TB drive; I’m getting rid (trading in) my MacBook. I need direct access to the pen drive. I’ll cancel my subscription/purchase.
Now that you’ve posted why you need to create a copy of your photo library, you could consider burning CD-R’s or DVD’s if you have an optical drive. In addition to the benefit of the integrity checks built into the burning process, you’ll also have an archive that has no accidental erasure or overwrite risk.
Hmm. I thought you needed this to copy from/to your iPhone? The app is supposed to be able to communicate with thumb/pen drives.
And replacing it with anything else?
If you’re getting another Mac, you can migrate the old one to the new one and use its Photos library.
If you’re getting (or already have) a Windows PC, Apple provides software to facilitate that:
If you don’t expect to have either Windows or Mac OS (switching to Linux? giving up on computers altogether?), then yes, a transfer to external media will be necessary so you can import it into something else later.
As I mention above, plug the iOS device into a Mac and use Image Capture to copy photos to an external drive, including thumb drives.