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For years, whenever I connected an iOS device to my Windows computer, in file explorer I saw a DCIM folder with subfolders following a pattern of 100APPLE, 101APPLE, 102APPLE, etc. Today when connecting one of my devices (running iOS 14.6), I noticed those folders are gone. Instead, the pattern seems to be YYYY__MM (e.g. 2013__01 and 2021__07). However, on a second iOS device (running iOS 14.7), the folder pattern is unchanged--I still see the original folder names.

What triggers this change? Is there a way to switch back? At first I thought it was updating to iOS 14.6; since my second device has an even more recent version, though, I'm wondering if there's some other necessary condition to trigger the folder name change.

I've found a couple references to this around the internet, but nothing definitive.

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    I'd take a wild guess that no-one on Mac would ever have found this issue, as the Mac has a dedicated 'system-friendly' way of accessing the photos, but Windows doesn't. The phone never mounts on a Mac like it does on Windows, as a separate 'drive' - so no-one ever looks inside. I don't have a device still on 14.6 to test.
    – Tetsujin
    Jul 25, 2021 at 6:56
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    I noticed today on iOS 15.4.1 that the folders now follow the pattern YYYYMM__ (e.g. 201407__ and 202206__).
    – jstricker
    Jun 26, 2022 at 17:47

1 Answer 1

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After I upgraded my first device to iOS 14.7, the subfolder pattern switched back to 100APPLE, 101APPLE, 102APPLE, etc. This makes me think the date-based folder structure was something specifically done (or perhaps accidentally exposed to users) in iOS 14.6.

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