connecting downloaded images with wallpaper settings

[Gorlash]

Hi all;
I'm a 30-year Windows user, and 15 year Android user, who is using Apple iPad for the first time. I've downloaded some images from my Flickr account, and want to use them as wallpaper.
I have moved all my downloaded images from the downloaded folder into an 'images' folder that I created, which *appears* to be located under the downloaded folder, though I'm really not sure what I'm seeing in the Files application.

Anyway, I somehow accidentally got my first image to show up in the Photos application, so was able to set it as wallpaper, but I have not been able to duplicate this magic with the later images...
The Photos app, wallpaper widget, and anything else, simply don't seem to know that the new images exist - though they still show up in the 'images' directory that is... maybe... below the downloaded folder???
Is there some way that I can actually gain control of the file system on this machine, so I can put the images where the other apps want them to be??

Sadly, the Photos app does not actually give me an option to scan around the file system and show it where my images are... the magic of this system completely eludes me...

 

[twerppoet]

When you use the share icon in the files app when viewing the photos there, there should be a Save Image option. This will save to the Photos app. You should also be able to select multiple images and use the Save Images option in the Share Share sheet.

I'm a multi-tasking at the moment, so I can't go into further detail, but if that's not enough hints to get you where you need to be let me know and I'll put together a more detailed set of instructions later.

 

[Gorlash]

Okay... fail # 1... there is *no* 'Share' icon in the Files app... at all... nor does the phrase 'Save Image' appear anywhere in that app, as far as I can see...
What I *do* have, is a couple dozen copies of the two images that I am trying to access; some are copied to Favorites, some are copied to iCloud Drive, some are copied to On My iPad ... some are even in Recently Deleted... none can actually be deleted, including the two Downloads links in Favorites...

and absolutely *NONE* of this mess is detectable in either Photos nor Wallpaper...

If it makes any difference, I have iPad 9th Generation, SW version 15.6.1

 

[Gorlash]

So I noticed that I had a down-rev version of the firmware, so updated to 15.7 ....
I'll bet I'm pleased to note that this made absolutely *no* difference in anything that I'm seeing here...

I *did* figure out how to delete the two useless Download folders under Favorites, which weren't visible to the Photos app anyway...

So I *still* have a Recents folder in Files, which contains multiple copies of the two images that I want to use,
and the Recents folder in Photos still only shows the one image that I accidentally downloaded when I first set up the machine, but does not see anything else...

Could someone please Explain why these two identically-named folders do not have the same contents, to two apps on the same machine??

 

[Gorlash]

So I noticed that I had a down-rev version of the firmware, so updated to 15.7 ....
I'll bet I'm pleased to note that this made absolutely *no* difference in anything that I'm seeing here...

I *did* figure out how to delete the two useless Download folders under Favorites, which weren't visible to the Photos app anyway...

So I *still* have a Recents folder in Files, which contains multiple copies of the two images that I want to use,
and the Recents folder in Photos still only shows the one image that I accidentally downloaded when I first set up the machine, but does not see anything else...

Could someone please Explain why these two identically-named folders do not have the same contents, to two apps on the same machine??

Okay, I figured out what I had to do... I found this link, which explained what to do...

Downloaded videos not showing on Photos A… - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

I still don't know why this is necessary, or why Recents isn't the same folder in all worlds, but at least I can make it work now...

 

[twerppoet]

I'm, glad you figured it out. I'll add a bit more, in case it helps.

The Share icon (a square with an up arrow) only shows up if you've opened the photo to view in Files. When you select multiple files you get Share choice at the bottom of the screen.

When you download an image in Safari, tap on the Download icon (circle with down arrow). When viewing the image the share icon should show. Save Image should be one of the options.

The last image shows the Share Sheet you get when viewing a downloaded image in Safari. The first two are from the Files app in the Download folder.

You may also get a Share option in the pop-up menu that appear when items are selected (highlighted). Sometimes you have to tap the little arrow at the right of the menu to see that option.

In general, anywhere you can open/view/select an image and see either the share icon or a share menu item you should be able to open the share sheet and see the option.

It's not 100% consistent where if you'll get the share option and what it contains. But it is usually there.

 

[twerppoet]

The folders in the Photos app are not actual folders. They are albums, and do not exist outside of the Photos app.

The Recents folder in the Files app is also not an actual folder, it's just a convenience feature to let you see what files you've accessed recently. This is true for almost all apps that have Recent folders. They don't really exist anywhere except in those apps.

And you don't really want them to exist everywhere. That would mean your recent photos, word files, pdf documents, etc. would all be piled together instead of being relevant to what you are doing.

I'm not sure what you are talking about with the duplicate Download folders under Favorites.

 

[Gorlash]

The folders in the Photos app are not actual folders. They are albums, and do not exist outside of the Photos app.

The Recents folder in the Files app is also not an actual folder, it's just a convenience feature to let you see what files you've accessed recently. This is true for almost all apps that have Recent folders. They don't really exist anywhere except in those apps.

And you don't really want them to exist everywhere. That would mean your recent photos, word files, pdf documents, etc. would all be piled together instead of being relevant to what you are doing.

I'm not sure what you are talking about with the duplicate Download folders under Favorites.

Thanks for all of your inputs here, @twerppoet !! I appreciate the feedback...

Coming from Windows and Linux background, I *am* finding the Apple worldview (in terms of how files are handled) rather confusing... every app seems to show a different view of the filesystem, which is very different from the other OSs... so I don't quite understand what I'm seeing...

As for the Favorites issue, the two Download folders were actually different objects; one was on iCloudDrive, the other was 'On My Pad' ... anyway, I figured out how to delete both of them.

As far as your comment about "That would mean your recent photos, word files, pdf documents, etc. would all be piled together...", that's not a problem with normal filesystems; different files are in different folders, and all folders have meaningful names, so there is no ambiguity at all... but at least I can open up the File Explorer app and see my entire filesystem, and know exactly what I have... that doesn't seem to be possible with the Apple environment.

I mean... Yes, in Windows or Linux, I can open my documents folder with a photo viewer, and I won't see anything interesting, but I'll *know* that I'm looking at the documents folder, so I won't be confused...

 

[Gorlash]

I am including an image from Files app, which is left over from yesterday's confusion. I *think* that I am looking at the Recents folder, though frankly that's just a wild guess... I have multiple copies of each of the images that I was working with yesterday, many of the duplicates have the same name... so what is real here??

 

[Gorlash]

I am including an image from Files app, which is left over from yesterday's confusion. I *think* that I am looking at the Recents folder, though frankly that's just a wild guess... I have multiple copies of each of the images that I was working with yesterday, many of the duplicates have the same name... so what is real here??

Okay, I figured this out, and am starting to get a better vision of how things work here...
As it turns out, I had created two different 'images' sub-folders yesterday, trying to get these images into a unique location... so I had one copy of the images in this basic folder, which I *think* was Downloads, or maybe Recents, though I can't tell since nothing is actually displayed. Then I had a second copy of them in one images folder, and a copy of two of them in the other images folder... but the Files app just shows them all glommed together in one view, which utterly defeats the purpose of folders...

so I guess that means that all images that I ever put on this machine, will all be dumped together in one display; there is apparently no way to actually separate them into sub-folders?? That's very odd...

 

[LannyC]

If it makes you feel any better, those of us with Macintosh backgrounds were equally confused at first by the way iOS handles files. The basic concept is that a file "belongs" to a specific application, not to the file system. This is a core strategy to prevent malware from infecting an iPhone or iPad. As a result, many documents don't show up in the Files app, but only in their respective applications. Thus, an infected file downloaded in Safari is unlikely to spread to the OS and cause a problem.

I have hundreds of old vacation photos scanned from 35mm slides on my iPad. I scanned, restored, and sorted them into folders on my iMac, then synched them to the iPad in iTunes (yup, another learning curve). Each folder appears in Photos as an album, carrying the name I assigned on the iMac. These albums are not editable on the iPad, but changes to them on the iMac will appear at the next sync operation.

Sometimes iOS makes us crazy, but eventually we learn how to make it do most of what we need, and I never worry about viruses.

 

[Gorlash]

If it makes you feel any better, those of us with Macintosh backgrounds were equally confused at first by the way iOS handles files. The basic concept is that a file "belongs" to a specific application, not to the file system. This is a core strategy to prevent malware from infecting an iPhone or iPad. As a result, many documents don't show up in the Files app, but only in their respective applications. Thus, an infected file downloaded in Safari is unlikely to spread to the OS and cause a problem.

I have hundreds of old vacation photos scanned from 35mm slides on my iPad. I scanned, restored, and sorted them into folders on my iMac, then synched them to the iPad in iTunes (yup, another learning curve). Each folder appears in Photos as an album, carrying the name I assigned on the iMac. These albums are not editable on the iPad, but changes to them on the iMac will appear at the next sync operation.

Sometimes iOS makes us crazy, but eventually we learn how to make it do most of what we need, and I never worry about viruses.

Thank you, @LannyC !! Okay, I understand this concept clearly... cool... it's a shame, I guess, that I didn't come across this vision a couple of days ago!!! I'm accustomed to managing my computer use primarily from Explorer, with liberal use of the command prompt (which I don't think Apple devices even have)... I now know not to attempt such a thing on the iPad...

 

[twerppoet]

To be clear, only iOS/iPadOS device have the different vision of file systems. Apple's traditional computers use MacOS, which like Windows has one file manager that rules them all.

Even then, the different views of files on iPadOS are left over from a time when each app had to build it's own file viewer. Now they can use the Files app view (not the entire app) to manage their files. This makes the UI a bit more consistent across many of the apps. At least the ones the follow Apple's recommended interface guidelines.

Under Files you can see the folders of most app, those that have been updated to the newer files API. It is the one place you can just look at them all, and do some limited file maintenance tasks. It's more constrained because of the security that Lanny mentioned. But Apple has been giving us more tools and consistency as the OS matures. Remeber, iOS/iPadOS are just barely out of the toddler phase as OS life spans go.

The On iPad and iCloud storage are like having two completely different hard drives. One is the local storage of the iPad, the other is on Apple's iCloud servers. Many apps have dedicated file space in both places, thus the duplication you are seeing. You can't normally delete these folders without deleting the app they are dedicated to.

The two Download folders are the default destination of files you download when using Safari. I believe it is set to the iCloud folder if you have iCloud storage (most people do if they set up an iCloud account). You can change that destination in Settings > Safari > Downloads. You might want to look at that since you said you deleted both folders.

The Recents folders, as I said are not actually folders. The Files app will show you all files recently accessed in the Files app. If you go to another app like Pages, it would only show you recent pages documents. This is not unique to Apple or iOS. If you open Word on a Windows computer you would find it also has a Recents option when opening files from within the program. The only difference is that Apple has also placed this feature in their file manager; Files on iOS/iPadOS, Finder on MacOS.

I was wrong about Recents only showing recently managed files in the Files app. It shows all recently used/moved/saved/copied/etc. files, even if they were opened in an app. So, it is a bit of a pile. But very handing if you are looking for a file you just opened awhile ago, but are not quite sure where you saved it.

That didn't used to be a problem in the past, when each app had exclusive access to their own folders and no others. In the new more complicated and hybrid system it is possible to place files in the folders of some other apps (if they enable the feature) or create your own folders that belong to no app. So Files has a Recents feature and some search capabilities; but nothing what is available on the more mature OS's like Windows, Linux, and MacOS.

 

[Gorlash]

Thanks, @twerppoet, those are very useful notes!!
For now, I think I have everything in hand that I need; I'm not planning on using the iPad for general computing (for that, I have my full-powered Windows desktop), I'll be using this mainly to control various hardware devices... I previously had been using Android devices for this purpose, but I'm discovering (not for the first time) that Android apps are sometimes not all that capable or stable... That's especially true for our new Shark robot vacuum; the Android app is labeled Sharkclean (FIELD)(DEBUG), which hardly inspires confidence!! The iPad app, conversely, is reported to be stable and completely functional.

 

[twerppoet]

No problem.