Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

hajime

macrumors 604
Original poster
Jul 23, 2007
7,880
1,296
Hi, I have a M1 iPad Pro 12.9. I connected an external SSD to it via the USB-C port. Since my iPad is almost full, I want to move all the photos and videos to an external drive. What is the best way to do it? I see there is a Select button in Photos but it does not allow me to Select All the photos and videos files to do the copying all at once. I have to manually select hundreds of them which I might miss a few.
 
Last edited:

hajime

macrumors 604
Original poster
Jul 23, 2007
7,880
1,296
From the App Store, I see: FileBrowserGo (free), FileBrowser - Document Manager and the more expensive FileBrowser Professional. Can the FileBrowserGo free version get the job done?

I manually selected all files (over 100) in Photos but when I clicked Save to Files, there was a long pause with a clock-like icon having "Downloading..." on top. To where are they being downloaded to? Without asking me the destination location, it gave me "Unable to Share There was an error while preparing to share. Please try again later." Tried twice but same error.

Is it possible to convert the iPad into target disk mode and connect it to a Mac directly for faster and easier file transfer?
 

hajime

macrumors 604
Original poster
Jul 23, 2007
7,880
1,296
FileBrowserGo has a free trial but is subscription based.

Can't answer the Mac question - I don't use Macs.

I try to stay away from those subscription based services. Another concern is that we have to give permissions to the app to access all personal files in the iPad.

I don't know why such basic Select All function is not available on iPad OS. Same for formatting disk and rejecting drive functions.
 

brucewayne

macrumors 6502
Nov 8, 2005
363
630
If you have a Mac, connect your external drive and the iPad to the Mac, then use the built in Image Capture software. You can pull off all of your images at once and save to the external SSD. Once they are there you can also use Image Capture to select and delete the Photos and Videos all at once
 
  • Like
Reactions: jdb8167 and hajime

hajime

macrumors 604
Original poster
Jul 23, 2007
7,880
1,296
It is now doing the copying. Thanks for the excellent suggestion!

1. I noticed that all the filenames are in the form IMG_number.PNG, IMG_number.HEIC, IMG_number.MOV, or IMG_Mumber.AAE (not sure why AAE Sidecar showed up).
Can we change the naming convention?

2. Supposing that I do such file transfer whenever my iPad's storage is almost full, what is the best way to consolidate all these photos and videos in the external drive? Currently, I created a new temporarily folder in the external drive and copy all the files there until a better solution is found.
 
Last edited:

brucewayne

macrumors 6502
Nov 8, 2005
363
630
Those are the filenames for each image. Note this is also going to capture screenshots, things you saved offline etc which is why you have different formats.

You could open Photos on the Mac, change your library to a folder on the external SSD, then import all of the files into Photos and let it sort them out
 
  • Like
Reactions: hajime

hajime

macrumors 604
Original poster
Jul 23, 2007
7,880
1,296
Supposing that I do such file transfer four times a year. Each time I change the library to a folder on the external SSD and import all the files into Photos. Will Photos sort everything out for me automatically? Using the method you suggested, will Photos move all the files from the external SSD to the Mac's internal SSD or it keeps tracks of whether the files are from the Mac's internal SSD or from the external SSD?

I will delete the files in the iPad after the files are copied to the external drive successfully. When I do such file transfer few months later, will the iPad/Image Capture increment the filename automatically? For example, if this time the files are in the range from IMG_0001.[PNG/HEIC/MOV] to IMG_2010.[PNG/HEIC.MOV], will the software automatically starts naming the file from IMG_2011 or start naming from IMG_0001 all over again?
 

dynalmadman

macrumors regular
May 1, 2010
136
61
Vegas, baby!
What am I missing here? If you have a Mac, aren’t all your photos shared between those devices? Can’t you copy them from the Mac to the external drive and then remove them from the iPad/Mac?
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.