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Transfer camera roll to new iPhone

M

MacBainNO

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 16, 2017
114
78
I want to configure the 12 Mini once it arrive as a new device, since I've been restoring backups all the way back from the iPhone 4 :).
My problem is the camera roll, I can't see any way to transfer this over to the new iPhone. Icloud photos make a mess out of the order etc. so that is out of the question. I would like to keep the order. Any tips?
 
MacBainNO said:
I want to configure the 12 Mini once it arrive as a new device, since I've been restoring backups all the way back from the iPhone 4 :).
My problem is the camera roll, I can't see any way to transfer this over to the new iPhone. Icloud photos make a mess out of the order etc. so that is out of the question. I would like to keep the order. Any tips?
Click to expand...
Back your phone up to a computer and restore it on the new one?
 
What do you mean by:
MacBainNO said:
... Icloud photos make a mess out of the order etc. so that is out of the question.
Click to expand...
Is it about the chronological order of pictures? If so, in the Recent tab pictures might not be in chronological order (AFAIK it's never meant to be), but in the Library tab they are.
 
BBDDVV said:
What do you mean by:

Is it about the chronological order of pictures? If so, in the Recent tab pictures might not be in chronological order (AFAIK it's never meant to be), but in the Library tab they are.
Click to expand...
Yes, the recent foler, that has always remained chronological for me. I sync a lot of photo albums from my pc and they are stores in under named folders. Now these will mix with the pictures I have taken with the iPhone since I will have to use the library and not the album way og viewing the photos. Guess I would just have to compromise. But, then i might just use iCloud photos.
 
hmmm, what you describe, to me, is as I expected it: the Recent tab shows pictures as they're added, regardless of data and time. E.g. when I receive and 'older' picture through iMessage or Airdrop (both of which retain that metadata) it shows up as most recent in the Recent tab, but it shows it correctly 'in time' in the Library tab. I think (hope) this is as designed as it allows me to easily find recently taken/(but also) received pictures/videos, while still having them in the chronological order in the Library view.

This also allows me to easily add a date to pictures that have no date (either scanned or from an old camera that a wrong date set) and have them move correctly in the Library tab while they still appear in order of receiving them in the Recent tab.

I could be wrong of course, this just made sense to me... ;-)
 
MacBainNO said:
Airdrop just transfer then randomly :(
Click to expand...

So you are looking for a way to transfer them all and have the Recent tab have them in the same order as you have them now in your Recent tab? (the Library tab will have them in chronological order no matter what method you use (that keeps the date/time intact)

Note: I'm genuinely trying to understand what you want to achieve! :)
 
BBDDVV said:
So you are looking for a way to transfer them all and have the Recent tab have them in the same order as you have them now in your Recent tab? (the Library tab will have them in chronological order no matter what method you use (that keeps the date/time intact)

Note: I'm genuinely trying to understand what you want to achieve! :)
Click to expand...
Correct, I want the recent folder to have the photos in the same order they are today without restoring the new iPhone from a backup. I like to have the option to scroll thru pictures taken with the just the iPhone chronologically without having photos taken with other cameras mixed in (since I have imported a lot of photos and scanned images thru iTunes).
This would not be a big problem If all the photos I have stored was taken with the just the iPhone, but this is not the case.
I have saved my camera roll backup on different online services and they let me import pictures back into the camera roll, but the are always out of order, I don't understand why this is so difficult to achieve :(. If I import the photos one by one it would work, but since we're talking about over 10 000 photos this is not going to work.
 
MacBainNO said:
Correct, I want the recent folder to have the photos in the same order they are today without restoring the new iPhone from a backup. I like to have the option to scroll thru pictures taken with the just the iPhone chronologically without having photos taken with other cameras mixed in (since I have imported a lot of photos and scanned images thru iTunes).
This would not be a big problem If all the photos I have stored was taken with the just the iPhone, but this is not the case.
I have saved my camera roll backup on different online services and they let me import pictures back into the camera roll, but the are always out of order, I don't understand why this is so difficult to achieve :(. If I import the photos one by one it would work, but since we're talking about over 10 000 photos this is not going to work.
Click to expand...

hmm, it seems you need a tool that automatically adds pictures one after the other to maintain the order in the Recent tab. Most imports just import them all together (to be efficient), and Recent will show the pictures in the order they completed their import.
 
Hi
I've recommended this before but once again I think Photosync will work really well for you.
I haven't used it to do what you want but it should do it quote: Organize photos & videos exactly how you want: Automatic target sub-directory creation by album name, recording date, media type & device name.
It's a really useful program.

PhotoSync – Photo Transfer and Backup App | For iOS & Android - PhotoSync

The best wireless transfer solution for photo & video backups between iOS devices and Android, computer (PC & Mac), cloud / photo services and NAS devices.
www.photosync-app.com www.photosync-app.com
 
Ok, so I found out if was missing about 2000 photos from the camera roll so might as well try iCloud Photos (First took a backup on my pc). Here is the "painful process", Since my local carrier has en excellent camera backup, everything was there, including the photos I've imported fra the pc.
-First delete the old imported photos from the carrier backyp
-Since iCloud only back all the pictures as a whole an don't put them into folders/albums I had to create this manually.
-Since iCloud don't allow you to import videos, I had to airdrop these videos to an extra iPhone 6 i had with iCloud photos enabled.
-The log into ICloud on my pc and manually import the videos into the correct iCloud albums.
-Now I deleted all photos from my primary iPhone, which took forever.
-I'm now starting the 12 hour process of downloading all the photos and videos taken with all my different iPhones into the camera roll, even though they will be out of order using my carrier app.
-After this nightmare I'll enable iCloud Photos and cross my fingers.

This is quite user-friendly 😄
 
Ruggy said:
Hi
I've recommended this before but once again I think Photosync will work really well for you.
I haven't used it to do what you want but it should do it quote: Organize photos & videos exactly how you want: Automatic target sub-directory creation by album name, recording date, media type & device name.
It's a really useful program.

PhotoSync – Photo Transfer and Backup App | For iOS & Android - PhotoSync

The best wireless transfer solution for photo & video backups between iOS devices and Android, computer (PC & Mac), cloud / photo services and NAS devices.
www.photosync-app.com www.photosync-app.com
Click to expand...
This totally worked for me. Thank you so much! I never would have found this on my own, or after hours of searching. 😁 Thank you so much!
 
MacBainNO said:
Ok, so I found out if was missing about 2000 photos from the camera roll so might as well try iCloud Photos (First took a backup on my pc). Here is the "painful process", Since my local carrier has en excellent camera backup, everything was there, including the photos I've imported fra the pc.
-First delete the old imported photos from the carrier backyp
-Since iCloud only back all the pictures as a whole an don't put them into folders/albums I had to create this manually.
-Since iCloud don't allow you to import videos, I had to airdrop these videos to an extra iPhone 6 i had with iCloud photos enabled.
-The log into ICloud on my pc and manually import the videos into the correct iCloud albums.
-Now I deleted all photos from my primary iPhone, which took forever.
-I'm now starting the 12 hour process of downloading all the photos and videos taken with all my different iPhones into the camera roll, even though they will be out of order using my carrier app.
-After this nightmare I'll enable iCloud Photos and cross my fingers.

This is quite user-friendly 😄
Click to expand...
If you didn't get what you wanted (when crossing your fingers above), Ruggy's suggestion in this threadworked for me, and did what I wanted (which I believe is the same for you): transfer all of the photos from one iPhone (it had several years worth of photos from several different iPhones) to my computer (MacBook Pro) via the PhotoSync Companion tool, then from the MBP to my new iPhone via AirDrop. Everything was in order by date (photos, screenshots AND videos) in my Camera Roll. (So the videos were in the date order of when they were taken as opposed to how AirDrop can sometimes clump all of the videos up at the end of the transfer.)

Yes, transferring everything over to the new iPhone at the beginning of the setup would have done the same, but I have a very special case (separate topic, way too long to discuss) where I needed to NOT do that.

PhotoSync was my savior. It did add the extra, middle-step (that I was hoping not to do) instead of iPhone-to-iPhone, but mission accomplished and that's all that matters. I really couldn't be happier.

I wish you the same. Good luck!
 
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