Idiot's guide to getting photos off Motorola G4 to a Windows 7 PC??

Chris Wilson · 16 Jan 2019 at 12:07

I use my phone AS a phone 99% of the time, but someone has texted a photo I need to get off the phone to my main Windows 7 64 bit PC. I have the USB cable but the phone contents do not show on the PC, could someone very kindly briefly explain what I need to do to see photos on this phone on the PC and transfer them please? Thanks

Steampunk · 16 Jan 2019 at 17:23

Have you remembered to pull down the front menu on the phone and change the settings from "charging" to "file transfer"? Then it should show up as a MTP storage device in "my computer".

Chris Wilson · 17 Jan 2019 at 11:57

Yes, I hadn't realised this was needed and it is now showing up in My Computer.... Thanks, I really am hopeless with these modern phones

Two empty bean cans and some string is more my level

Steampunk · 17 Jan 2019 at 15:28

Chris Wilson said:
Yes, I hadn't realised this was needed and it is now showing up in My Computer.... Thanks, I really am hopeless with these modern phones Two empty bean cans and some string is more my level

If you connect your phone to a PC to charge, people can't get into your phone without the code/fingerprint/whatever, but they could access it via the PC as an attached storage device. Now the default is to not be storage, and to only connect for charging by default, unless the phone's owner explicitly changes that setting when plugging in. So it is a security feature that makes sense to have.

Chris Wilson · 17 Jan 2019 at 16:25

I see, that makes excellent sense, thanks for the clarification!

Columbo · 19 Jan 2019 at 17:43

Why not just download the Google Photos app from the playstore and let it back everything up, then simply login to Google Photos on the web ?

Chris Wilson · 19 Jan 2019 at 17:52

I suppose I could do, but I have only ever taken a dozen or so photos with the thing

Thanks for the suggestion.