Am I trying to achieve the impossible? (Copying Photos)

Soldato
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28 Sep 2008
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Hi all, this seems to me like an incredibly simple ask, but with no clear instruction on how to achieve it.

My parents have an aging iPad 2 on 9.3.5 (I think). It's slow and clunky but has loads of photos (in albums too) that they want to save.

If I plug it into my Mac running Big Sur, I can go to photo app and "Import all" photos, but this only seems to bring over 800 odd photos. The iPad reports over 2000. Additionally, none of the ones in the albums come across, at least, not obviously, and the albums are not preserved in the photos app.

I've performed a "backup" too, just in case. I think the idea is not to remove the photos from the iPad. It will probably just get put into a drawer somewhere and forgotten about. However, the key here is moving the photos ideally to another tablet and hopefully retain that album formatting.

If I choose to use iCloud on the iPad, a message comes up saying something like it can't be sync'd with iTunes and iCloud and therefore 1000 photos are going to be removed, or something to that effect...

If I use my limited knowledge of MACos and iPad apps to Google a solution, I end up facing applications which require payment.

So, here I am, reaching out to the collective for assistance, if anyone has any suggestions or tips.

Other info, I have the "camera kit" which is two adapters for SD Card and USB, but these seem to only copy from those to the iPad...

Thanks
 
Both finder and the iCloud option should work with pretty much no issue. Do you have the exact message if you say to move the photos to iCloud?
 
Both finder and the iCloud option should work with pretty much no issue. Do you have the exact message if you say to move the photos to iCloud?

I think the issue is, Finder see's 900 photos, the iPad says there is over 2000. Looking at the photos in Finder, I can't see some of the pictures that are in Albums on the iPad.
Could use dropbox. Load the free space up with pictures, then on a PC copy them out into a non-dropbox folder.
Not sure on current dropbox limits, but these photos are over 2Gb, probably more like 5 or 6Gb
 
I think the issue is, Finder see's 900 photos, the iPad says there is over 2000. Looking at the photos in Finder, I can't see some of the pictures that are in Albums on the iPad.

Not sure on current dropbox limits, but these photos are over 2Gb, probably more like 5 or 6Gb
Each?

Load it with some of the photos. They upload to the cloud. Open dropbox on a PC / Mac. Copy those photos out of dropbox onto the PC / Mac.

Load it with more photos, repeat.
 
I noticed that you don't meet iOS requirements... but this is for anyone who has iOS 13 or later.

Sign up with mega.nz. Get the app for an extra 5GB and do soome other stuff to get more space for the year. Then sync photos. Make sure they are synced by logging in to mega.nz via a browser on laptop or desktop pc. Then delete the app and then remove photos from icloud. If you want you can then make a backup from desktop/laptop from mega.nz.

You might need temp more space so may cost a few quid but depends on how important the photos are. This is exactly the way I do it on other devices and it works 100% flawlessly.

They sync automatically in the background as long as it's iOs 13. If it' not on iOS 13 ignore this post.

In your case OP you could try the icloud sync app to PC. Not sure if it brings photos down but give it a go..
 
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