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Importing photo albums

jkingrph

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I just got a new iPad air and would like to transfer some photo albums, intact to the iPad from my pc where the album is stored. I did this a few years ago on another iPad but cannot remember how. I tried both iCloud and a couple of photo transfer apps, but the all take the photo out of the album (file) and basically create one huge album .

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can move these files intact?
 

giradman

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Hello - have you tried using iTunes & a photo sync? Also, if you do not have a large number of images, Dropbox would be another solution. Finally, you mention using photo transfer apps but did not state which ones failed to please you? For myself, I've used PhotoSync (a $3 purchase). Let us know if any of these suggestions help - Dave :)
 
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jkingrph

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I have tried iTunes , Photosync an and one called Photo Transfer App. They all removed photos from my individual albums during the transfer and posted them all into on huge album and not always in the order desired. I will have to check out Dropbox.
 

Wingennis

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I have tried iTunes , Photosync an and one called Photo Transfer App. They all removed photos from my individual albums during the transfer and posted them all into on huge album and not always in the order desired. I will have to check out Dropbox.

Dropbox will retain your album but might shuffle the order of the photos a bit.
 

giradman

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I have tried iTunes , Photosync an and one called Photo Transfer App. They all removed photos from my individual albums during the transfer and posted them all into on huge album and not always in the order desired. I will have to check out Dropbox.

Hi again - well, iTunes & PhotoSync don't behave in that manner on my iPad - for iTunes, a photo sync should simply put the images selected on your computer and copies each to the iPad as an 'album', and leaving the originals on the computer - as an example, please see the pic attached (click to enlarge) - I normally do a manual sync of selected folders and had only 2 folders checked (the lower ones shown); as a test I checked the folder w/ the blue arrow, did a sync which put the images into an album of the same name on the iPad - when I checked the 'Pictures' folder on my MBPro, the images were still present, i.e. only copies were transferred to the iPad.

Concerning PhotoSync, I opened the iPad & MBPro apps and transferred two images from my laptop's 'Pictures' folder to the iPad - these were put into the 'Camera Roll' but remained on the computer - so I'm not understanding your issues w/ these options. You might want to tell us more about your PC & Windows OS and whether you are using the most recent version of iTunes; also, are you using any cloud services and/or PhotoStream? Good luck - Dave :)
.
Screen Shot 2014-04-01 at 12.08.10 PM.png
 
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jkingrph

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My pc is 64 bit Windows 8.1 computer. It does have iCloud control panel, although I really do not understand it, Photostream is a unknown for me,. iTunes is the latest version.

The last time I tried iTunes, it copied the folder fine. When I tried to copy another folder, the first one copied was no longer available. When I was able to copy multiple folders, the folder identity was lost and multiple folders were combined into one big new album on the iPad.

What I am trying to say is that I have a lot of archived pictures separated into albums (folders) on my computer. I would like to some of them to the iPad air for portability, but have been unable to do so.
 

twerppoet

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My pc is 64 bit Windows 8.1 computer. It does have iCloud control panel, although I really do not understand it, Photostream is a unknown for me,. iTunes is the latest version.

The last time I tried iTunes, it copied the folder fine. When I tried to copy another folder, the first one copied was no longer available. When I was able to copy multiple folders, the folder identity was lost and multiple folders were combined into one big new album on the iPad.

What I am trying to say is that I have a lot of archived pictures separated into albums (folders) on my computer. I would like to some of them to the iPad air for portability, but have been unable to do so.

iTunes does not copy photos to your iPad. It syncs a selected folder of pictures to your iPad. The difference is that syncing means when you change stuff on the computer it changes the contents on the iPad, the next time you connect. When your removed the one folder and added a different one you were not telling iTunes to copy the new folder to the iPad. You were telling it to stop syncing the first folder and sync the second one instead.

To get around this you copy all the folders you want to sync to the iPad into one master folder, then select that folder in iTunes Photo sync settings. Each folder in main folder will become a separate album in Photos on the iPad.
Only one level of sub-folders is recognized. A folder inside a folder inside the main folder will be ignored.

If you choose the Selected Albums option you can turn on/off folders within the main folder. Since you already have a folder with your album folders in it, and only want some of them, this would probably be the best option for you.

On the other hand, if you have the hard drive space, making a separate folder just for you iPad albums and placing 'copies' of the folders you want there would give you more flexibility. You could move, copy, delete pictures without worrying about deleting or altering your originals.

iTunes: Syncing photos

Hold in mind that albums synced to the iPad using iTunes must be removed the same way. There is no way to delete these albums directly from the iPad, short of restoring the device.

None of this has anything to do with iCloud and Photo Stream, which is a newer service.

iCloud: My Photo Stream FAQ

iCloud: Shared Photo Streams FAQ
 
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jkingrph

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iTunes does not copy photos to your iPad. It syncs a selected folder of pictures to your iPad. The difference is that syncing means when you change stuff on the computer it changes the contents on the iPad, the next time you connect. When your removed the one folder and added a different one you were not telling iTunes to copy the new folder to the iPad. You were telling it to stop syncing the first folder and sync the second one instead.

To get around this you copy all the folders you want to sync to the iPad into one master folder, then select that folder in iTunes Photo sync settings. Each folder in main folder will become a separate album in Photos on the iPad.
Only one level of sub-folders is recognized. A folder inside a folder inside the main folder will be ignored.

If you choose the Selected Albums option you can turn on/off folders within the main folder. Since you already have a folder with your album folders in it, and only want some of them, this would probably be the best option for you.

On the other hand, if you have the hard drive space, making a separate folder just for you iPad albums and placing 'copies' of the folders you want there would give you more flexibility. You could move, copy, delete pictures without worrying about deleting or altering your originals.

iTunes: Syncing photos

Hold in mind that albums synced to the iPad using iTunes must be removed the same way. There is no way to delete these albums directly from the iPad, short of restoring the device.

None of this has anything to do with iCloud and Photo Stream, which is a newer service.

iCloud: My Photo Stream FAQ

iCloud: Shared Photo Streams FAQ


I seem to have learned some of this on my own today. I tunes was not showing the folders the other day, not working properly at all. I selected the folder I wanted , which contained the sub folders( the actual individual albums) , and it did sync and "transfer" them to the iPad. Again it lost the integrity of the individual folders and transferred 9000 photos into one huge album, which I now want to remove. I have to figure out how to get iTunes to do this now. Any suggestions there?
 

twerppoet

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Turn off syncing of Photos in the iTunes setting, then Apply (sync) the change. This will remove all the synced albums.
 
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jkingrph

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I went to , where you select folders and did not select anything, then applied to sync and it seems to have removed everything. I then went to my pc and created a new folder on the desktop and copied the album folders into it, making sure there were no sub folders, and moved the ones that were out so I only have the main folder, and the one level of folders for my albums inside it. It's syncing now and I will see what happens in a couple of hours.

I definetly did not know you could not have a folder in a folder in a folder so thanks for that tip. I hope that was my problem.
 
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jkingrph

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I just opened the iPad, it's still syncing but seems to be doing what I want now. I did check one folder and I apparently misnamed it, so I am assuming that I can rename that folder on the computer and the next time I sync it will be replaced with the correct name.
 
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jkingrph

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It worked, and synced as I wanted. I really appreciate your help. I am going to write this down in my computer info binder for future use, so I will not forget.
 

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