Copy Photos to New iPad Air from Windows 10 PC using USB-C connector

[MPIon]

Hello,

New to this forum and am trying to do what I thought would be fairly simple and seems to have been asked before.
I have 50GB of photos and some videos on my PC and want to transfer them to my new empty iPAD Air.

Have done a lot of searches on this and most seen to refer to iTunes which are way old and as far as I know, there is no iTunes App anymore.
I thought hooking up the PC to the iPAD with USB to USB-C would do the trick. I can seen the one photo I have on my iPAD on the PC in a folder under Internal Storage with the date of the photo.
However if I try to copy other photos from the PC to this location, it won't let me do it.
Is this a cable issue? or do I actually need to use some sort of external app? Don't think iCloud would be much good as this is only 5GB.

I guess there might also be a problem with the directory structure, as ideally I would like to copy that as well, which has multiple sub-directories with applicable photos and videos in each.

Thanks for any help or suggestions. If I can't do this, I guess I'll be sitting with a mostly empty 256GB iPAD

 

[giradman]

Hello and welcome to the forum - not sure which Windows version is on your PC but iTunes for the computer should be available in one of the app stores (Microsoft or possibly a reference in Apple's app store?). If you've not seen this LINK, take a look - offers plenty of options - finally there is an Apple/PC app called iMazing which I've been using for years to transfer files between my Mac computers and iDevices - there is a PC version - free trial, not sure? Dave

 

[MPIon]

Hello and welcome to the forum - not sure which Windows version is on your PC but iTunes for the computer should be available in one of the app stores (Microsoft or possibly a reference in Apple's app store?). If you've not seen this LINK, take a look - offers plenty of options - finally there is an Apple/PC app called iMazing which I've been using for years to transfer files between my Mac computers and iDevices - there is a PC version - free trial, not sure? Dave

Thanks for replying. I am on Windows 10. I might have a look at the iMazing app.

I'm still finding my way around the Photos app and it seems I will have to create Folders first and then Sub-Folders and finally Albums to actually store the photos in. I've managed to do a couple of albums by uploading to iCloud from the PC and then downloading to the iPad. They first appeared in the Files app, then had to share the images, and finally move to the appropriate Album. Bit of a tedious process, but at least I have got it to work.

I must admit, I much prefer the Windows way of doing things, where you know clearly where files are stored and its easy to drag and drop and create folders. I was not sure if sharing the pictures from Files to Photos meant that there were now one or two images of each photos. I deleted the images in Files and the ones in Photos were still there - I guess that meant it copied them, so there were two copies before I deleted the ones in Files.

 

[giradman]

Thanks for replying. I am on Windows 10. I might have a look at the iMazing app.

I'm still finding my way around the Photos app and it seems I will have to create Folders first and then Sub-Folders and finally Albums to actually store the photos in. I've managed to do a couple of albums by uploading to iCloud from the PC and then downloading to the iPad. They first appeared in the Files app, then had to share the images, and finally move to the appropriate Album. Bit of a tedious process, but at least I have got it to work.

I must admit, I much prefer the Windows way of doing things, where you know clearly where files are stored and its easy to drag and drop and create folders. I was not sure if sharing the pictures from Files to Photos meant that there were now one or two images of each photos. I deleted the images in Files and the ones in Photos were still there - I guess that meant it copied them, so there were two copies before I deleted the ones in Files.

Well, in 2011-12, I had just retired and switched completely from the PC world to the Apple one, thinking the same as I put in bold above - a common complaint often seen on my Apple-related forums from 'switchers' - when one changes universes the language differs and a matter of adaptation.

I'm assuming your iPad has iPadOS 17.x installed - check the iPad Guide HERE and drill down the table of contents to the Photos description - there are some peculiarities in how albums behave; also Apple is bringing out new versions of its operating systems and the upcoming iPadOS 18.x is suppose to have a major overhaul of Photos, so not sure what to expect? Good luck - Dave

 

[MPIon]

Well, in 2011-12, I had just retired and switched completely from the PC world to the Apple one, thinking the same as I put in bold above - a common complaint ofter seen on my Apple-related forums from 'switchers' - when one changes universes the language differs and a matter of adaptation.

I'm assuming your iPad has iPadOS 17.x installed - check the iPad Guide HERE and drill down the table of contents to the Photos description - there are some peculiarities in how albums behave; also Apple is bringing out new versions of its operating systems and the upcoming iPadOS 18.x is suppose to have a major overhaul of Photos, so not sure what to expect? Good luck - Dave

Dave,

Yes, the iPad has OS 17.5.1 - only bought it yesterday. Its our second - the previous one still going strong after 10 years, but some apps don't work properly anymore - such as Skyview Lite.
I use both Windows and iPad - Windows for what I consider 'serious work' i.e. photoshopping, Office 365, c# and various Access Databases that I have written - you definitely need to be able to locate where files are on that, if you link to images in Access.
The iPad is more for browsing the internet and emails and playing etc.

I actually worked for Apple back in the 90's when it was a tiny company compared to Microsoft - now it seems to have just got bigger. Still did not really get the hang of the operating system. Each to their own I suppose.

 

[MPIon]

Dave,

I have looked at iMazing and it seems good and reasonably priced.
However, it seems that you still have to manually create the Folders and Albums on the iPad. I would ideally just like to copy the whole Pictures directory from the PC and drop it into Photos and it would re-create the whole directory structure. Don't think it will do this.
Perhaps as a regular user of iMazing, you could confirm this?

Thanks

Miles

 

[giradman]

Dave,

Yes, the iPad has OS 17.5.1 - only bought it yesterday. Its our second.......................

I actually worked for Apple back in the 90's when it was a tiny company compared to Microsoft - now it seems to have just got bigger. Still did not really get the hang of the operating system. Each to their own I suppose.

Boy, assume the days of PowerPC? Apple has made a LOT of macOS changes - I came in on Mountain Lion (macOS X 10.8; then with Big Sur in 2020, they added a number to macOS 11 - I'm now on Sonoma 14.5 - next version is Sequoia 15 this fall. In addition, the file system is now APFS (split into 'containers' with a bunch of added security features); finally, Apple M-series silicon is replacing Intel processors - my current laptop is a M-2 Air and wife uses a M-3 iMac - I started with an Apple II+ in 1980, then on PCs for decades (related to what was bought for my job), then back to Apple around retirement. Quite a history! Dave

 

[MPIon]

Boy, assume the days of PowerPC? Apple has made a LOT of macOS changes - I came in on Mountain Lion (macOS X 10.8; then with Big Sur in 2020, they added a number to macOS 11 - I'm now on Sonoma 14.5 - next version is Sequoia 15 this fall. In addition, the file system is now APFS (split into 'containers' with a bunch of added security features); finally, Apple M-series silicon is replacing Intel processors - my current laptop is a M-2 Air and wife uses a M-3 iMac - I started with an Apple II+ in 1980, then on PCs for decades (related to what was bought for my job), then back to Apple around retirement. Quite a history! Dave

Not sure what the name was, but it was when they were just bringing out the first Mac PC I think. I worked on the mainframe. Lost touch when I left and worked mostly on Ingres Unix systems, with Windows PC's for home - after having two Amstrad's with DOS that is. Retired back in 2005 and have kept my hand in doing projects at home.

 

[giradman]

Dave,

I have looked at iMazing and it seems good and reasonably priced.
However, it seems that you still have to manually create the Folders and Albums on the iPad. I would ideally just like to copy the whole Pictures directory from the PC and drop it into Photos and it would re-create the whole directory structure. Don't think it will do this.
Perhaps as a regular user of iMazing, you could confirm this?

Thanks

Miles

Hi Miles - well, I cannot answer that question since I do not have a PC - but I tried to duplicate the process on the pics below - opened iMazing on my MacAir and cabled my iPad; selected 'Data' and rows of items on my iPad are shown in the first pic - I selected 'Photos' and second pic opens my iPad's Photos App from which I selected to 'Import' (arrow). In the third pic, I opened the 'Pictures' folder on my MacAir in Finder and selected 'Biltmore_Aug18' (which contained 47 images) - the folder was then copied to my iPad; last pic shows the format of the copy. I suspect this would work similarly on a PC (but a guess w/o trying) - not sure that I'd try a 50 GB transfer from a single folder? Might want to look at the FAQs on the iMazing site for an answer relative to a PC. Dave

.

 

[MPIon]

Hi Miles - well, I cannot answer that question since I do not have a PC - but I tried to duplicate the process on the pics below - opened iMazing on my MacAir and cabled my iPad; selected 'Data' and rows of items on my iPad are shown in the first pic - I selected 'Photos' and second pic opens my iPad's Photos App from which I selected to 'Import' (arrow). In the third pic, I opened the 'Pictures' folder on my MacAir in Finder and selected 'Biltmore_Aug18' (which contained 47 images) - the folder was then copied to my iPad; last pic shows the format of the copy. I suspect this would work similarly on a PC (but a guess w/o trying) - not sure that I'd try a 50 GB transfer from a single folder? Might want to look at the FAQs on the iMazing site for an answer relative to a PC. Dave

Dave - thanks again for you reply and time. I downloaded iTunes to my PC again (and found dozens of Music Albums that I had bought years ago and forgotten about). Then connected to my iPad with the USB cable and lo and behold, I could transfer images to the iPad using the itunes app on my PC. This used the synching process, and they ended up in Photos under From My MAC - bit odd since it was from a PC!
So, now I had to create an Album for them in Photos and did a copy from "From My MAC" to the new Album.
Went back to iTunes and unsynced the folder, so the "From My MAC" disappeared.
Don't really want to synch photos from PC to iPad on a regular basis.
Anyway, now I have two methods to copy the photos, bit by bit - iCloud and iTunes via USB cable.

Thanks again, I'll let you get on now and I'll do a lot more research into tips and tricks on iPad

Miles

 

[giradman]

Miles - good luck - sounds like you're on your way! Dave