iPad: HELP! Will Syncing New Photos Delete All My Old Ones?

[VideoNewbie]

a while ago i transferred photos from my camera onto my computer and then synced them to my ipad.

i deleted the photos off my computer. they are now only on my ipad.

i now have new photos i want to transfer from my camera onto the ipad.

if i sync the new photos will it try and erase all the other content ive transferred from before? if so this is a SERIOUS design flaw,.

how do i get around it?

[PracticalMac]

Originally Posted by VideoNewbie

a while ago i transferred photos from my camera onto my computer and then synced them to my ipad.

i deleted the photos off my computer. they are now only on my ipad.

i now have new photos i want to transfer from my camera onto the ipad.

if i sync the new photos will it try and erase all the other content ive transferred from before? if so this is a SERIOUS design flaw,.

how do i get around it?

iOS devices are an extension of your computer, a design philosophy started decades ago with things like Palm Pilot.

On the flip side, always back up your documents, photos included, at least on 2 separate eternal devices.

Finally, iOS might transfer lower resolution photos to iOS stuff to save the limited space. Your HDD could have 10x more space then on say iPad. I could never fit half the full resolutions pictures on my iPad.

[HazyCloud]

No, it should not erase your old pictures. (EDIT* Like the response below says, if you are syncing pictures from you computer again, your originals will be deleted from the iPad since you deleted them after syncing. Install Dropbox first before doing any syncing. If you were importing them from the Camera Kit, your originals on the iPad would not be erased.) But, why would you erase them from your computer? Never. Ever. Do. That. If you lost or broke your iPad, your pictures would be gone forever. Plus your computer has a lot more space for storage than your iPad.

First off, download Dropbox and signup for a new account. It's free. Once you have an account, Dropbox will automatically upload all of your pictures to your Dropbox account every time you open the app. This will insure that all of your pictures will be safe in the event something happens to your iPad or they get erased somehow. (Synced pictures from a computer can't be erased on the iPad last time I checked.)

[Kadin]

Originally Posted by HazyCloud

No, it should not erase your old pictures. But, why would you erase them from your computer? Never. Ever. Do. That. If you lost or broke your iPad, your pictures would be gone forever. Plus your computer has a lot more space for storage than your iPad.

First off, download Dropbox and signup for a new account. It's free. Once you have an account, Dropbox will automatically upload all of your pictures to your Dropbox account every time you open the app. This will insure that all of your pictures will be safe in the event something happens to your iPad or they get erased somehow. (Synced pictures from a computer can't be erased on the iPad last time I checked.)

Great response and solid advice.

[charlituna]

Originally Posted by VideoNewbie

if i sync the new photos will it try and erase all the other content ive transferred from before? if so this is a SERIOUS design flaw,.

how do i get around it?

It's not a design flaw it's a user flaw. Or at least a potential one.

The photos in your camera roll are not affected by syncing. Doing a sync doesn't erase them or import them. So if these old photos are still in your camera roll they are fine.

Now if you are saying that you imported them, loaded them in iPhoto or a folder of photos and synced them back to the iPad in the regular photo library and then removed them from the computer, yes the next sync will delete them. Because the act of syncing is to keep your collections identical with the computer as the master of the action in the case of photos. If you removed a photo from the computer the system assumes that you did this because you don't want the photo and it will remove it from everything.

That this is the way the system works isn't a design error so much as you deleting the photos from your computer before fully understanding the system is a user one. You should have asked before dumping the computer copies. Now the best you can do is email them back to yourself or, if your computer can read and import from photo stream, try putting them in photo stream and get them back to the computer for safe keeping.

[HazyCloud]

Originally Posted by charlituna

It's not a design flaw it's a user flaw. Or at least a potential one.

The photos in your camera roll are not affected by syncing. Doing a sync doesn't erase them or import them. So if these old photos are still in your camera roll they are fine.

Now if you are saying that you imported them, loaded them in iPhoto or a folder of photos and synced them back to the iPad in the regular photo library and then removed them from the computer, yes the next sync will delete them. Because the act of syncing is to keep your collections identical with the computer as the master of the action in the case of photos. If you removed a photo from the computer the system assumes that you did this because you don't want the photo and it will remove it from everything.

That this is the way the system works isn't a design error so much as you deleting the photos from your computer before fully understanding the system is a user one. You should have asked before dumping the computer copies. Now the best you can do is email them back to yourself or, if your computer can read and import from photo stream, try putting them in photo stream and get them back to the computer for safe keeping.

This is why I suggested Dropbox. It's the safest and most error free way to save your images.

[charlituna]

Originally Posted by HazyCloud

This is why I suggested Dropbox. It's the safest and most error free way to save your images.

Hardly. The safest and more error free way is to plug it into a computer with an understanding of how the system works (rather than calling it a design flaw when you either don't understand or don't like the way it works)

Anything that goes over the Internet has a greater potential for error, corruption or having the server on the other end crash when there might be a backup or there might not. Which makes over the air by its nature never better than local.

[HazyCloud]

Originally Posted by charlituna

Hardly. The safest and more error free way is to plug it into a computer with an understanding of how the system works (rather than calling it a design flaw when you either don't understand or don't like the way it works)

Anything that goes over the Internet has a greater potential for error, corruption or having the server on the other end crash when there might be a backup or there might not. Which makes over the air by its nature never better than local.

Sure, I always suggest going local if possible. But like you said, the user has to have "an understanding of how the system works". With Dropbox, you don't. You just open the app and it uploads your images. There isn't anything you need to understand. While you and I might be tech savy, not all users are.

Since the user deleted the originals, you suggested emailing them back, which is crazy if you have more than a few images, or using PhotoStream. The last time I checked, both email and PhotoStream are also online and not local. In this user's issue, Dropbox will be the easiest and most error free way. Once the images are all on Dropbox, which DP does without any user input other than opening the app, the user could then easily move all of them to a local folder. Much easier than trying to use PhotoStream or emailing images a few a time.