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How can I manage photos on my iPhone 4S such that I can sync the photos to my computer, leave them on my computer and yet selectively remove photos from and leave photos on my iPhone? Simply said, What options exist for heavy duty (12 GB photo library to start with room to grow) and more efficient way to manage photos and videos between my computer and an iPhone.

I am asking this because recently, my iPhone is complaining to me that I have no more storage space. I have a lot of photos and videos shot on my iPhone and I usually leave them on my iPhone. I back up my precious photos and videos via the back-up feature in iTunes and that's all. But iTunes doesn't allow me to view the photos that it has backed up and removing any image from my iPhone is going to do the same to the back-up copy. I have depleted the storage space, I need to clear some of the photos from my iPhone.

I could back up the photos by copying them from the iPhone icon under My Computer. However, this method gets confusing in the long run, especially when I am selectively removing photos over time and putting them back.

So I'm starting to ask myself if everyone else does it this way (the confusing method). What is a way to manage photos and videos more efficiently between my computer and iPhone, such that my computer is the main library of all the photos and videos -- that's deleting items from iPhone when sync'ed with computer does not remove the copy on my computer and new items on my iPhone gets transferred to the computer?

The leading solution of using a Cloud service may be too expensive. It would be great if I could transfer between just an external hard drive and my iPhone.

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I think you could use Dropbox. Use it to upload your photos to the cloud with a bi-directional sync. After that you can delete any local photos. You can still view your pictures on your iPhone, but the iPhone will always re-download them (the computer on the other hand will keep all photos offline per default). If you want to view them longer, you can mark them as favorites and then Dropbox will store them locally. – gentmatt Jul 11 '12 at 16:29
I have too many photos to upload to Dropbox. I also have videos, which are taking up a lot of storage space. I am thinking if I could do this on an external hard drive. – xenon Jul 11 '12 at 16:32
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BTW, you can still use Dropbox. Via invites it's possible to get up to 16GB of free storage. 500MB per invite. It's a long way to get there, though. – gentmatt Jul 11 '12 at 16:46
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Too bad (I don't think) you're on a Mac. iPhoto does just what you need very well. It recognizes photos that haven't been imported previously, and will offer to import them. You can delete pictures from your iPhone without affecting iPhoto as well. – bassplayer7 Jul 11 '12 at 19:18

3 Answers

up vote 1 down vote accepted
  1. When importing new photos and videos from my iPhone, I always click to delete them on my iPhone, so the master copy moves to the iPhoto library.
  2. The only photos & vides I keep on my iPhone are those I explicitely synch to it: I use a smart album of last 12 (or whatever) months plus whatever hand picked photos and albums I want.

This works of course because I use a Mac. Since you tagged your question "Windows" and you speak of "My Computer" icons, I suppose you're on a PC and this answer will not be very useful to you. But I am still posting it in hope that it maybe inspires you to find a solution that works for you.

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up vote 0 down vote

For windows PC's Photo albums:

  1. Create a master sync folder on your pc with no photo files at the root level of the folder. (e.g. C:\Pix\iPhone)
  2. Create sub-folders within the master sync folder with the subfolders named what you want the ipad's photo albums to be named. (e.g. C:\Pix\iPhone\2013-01-01 New Years Party!)
  3. Place the photo files you want to sync in the appropriate subfolder within the master sync folder. (e.g. C:\Pix\iPhone\2013-01-01 New Years Party!\IMG001.jpg)
  4. In itunes on the photos tab, select the master folder as the sync folder. (e.g. C:\Pix\iPhone)
  5. After syncing, each subfolder will be an album on the device with the proper photos contained there-in. (e.g. Albums\2013-01-01 New Years Party!)
  6. Delete photos from the iPhone\DCIM folder that you've copied.

The trick here is to copy content from iPhone\DCIM to your local Pix\iPhone and sync back via iTunes. Delete the originals from the iPhone\DCIM after copying each time. You can create an Pix\Inbox folder where you copy all the pictures, and only move the ones you want on the iPhone to the Pix\iPhone\[ablum name]

see Apple Forum

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up vote 0 down vote

You could try Together

All videos will be linked to your account, synch is done over the air (no need to plug in), web management interface is available. Also there are some cool features for working with videos.

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Can you share some details about what the application will do and how it solves the asker's problem? Also, please read the FAQ, especially the part about self-promotion. – patrix♦ May 16 at 4:34

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