Can't find pictures on Galaxy S4 when connected to PC with USB

[AC Question]

I have a Galaxy S4 running version 4.2.2. On the phone itself, I can see, in the gallery, all of the pictures I've taken. When I connect the phone to my PC via a USB cable, I can't locate the pictures anywhere.

Clicking on the phone icon that pops up under "My Computer", I see icons for "Card" and "Phone". Clicking on "Card" lets me navigate to a DCIM folder where I can see all of the photos taken with my Razr that were transferred to the S4 when I got it. None of the new pictures taken with the S4 are there.

Clicking on the "Phone" icon reveals a lot of folders (Samsung, Android, Data, Downloads, etc.) including a DCIM folder. But there are no photos in the DCIM folder! I've gone through all of the folders I can see and none of the photos are visible anywhere!

If I go back to the actual phone itself, I can pull up all of the pictures I've taken, flip through them, email them, post them to social media, etc. But I can't locate them in order to pull the full resolution image to my PC.

Any idea where they are or how to get them? I'm baffled.

 

[Golfdriver97]

I have a Galaxy S4 running version 4.2.2. On the phone itself, I can see, in the gallery, all of the pictures I've taken. When I connect the phone to my PC via a USB cable, I can't locate the pictures anywhere.

Clicking on the phone icon that pops up under "My Computer", I see icons for "Card" and "Phone". Clicking on "Card" lets me navigate to a DCIM folder where I can see all of the photos taken with my Razr that were transferred to the S4 when I got it. None of the new pictures taken with the S4 are there.

Clicking on the "Phone" icon reveals a lot of folders (Samsung, Android, Data, Downloads, etc.) including a DCIM folder. But there are no photos in the DCIM folder! I've gone through all of the folders I can see and none of the photos are visible anywhere!

If I go back to the actual phone itself, I can pull up all of the pictures I've taken, flip through them, email them, post them to social media, etc. But I can't locate them in order to pull the full resolution image to my PC.

Any idea where they are or how to get them? I'm baffled.

Welcome to the forums.
Have you tried looking for a photos folder in the phone?

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! When you're using the computer to navigate, are you saying there is no DCIM/Camera folder on the Phone?

 

[batlash]

Yes and no. When I connect the phone to the PC, I see two icons: Phone and Card:


If I click on the Phone icon, I can see folder for DCIM, Pictures, PhotoEditor, and others. I would expect to find the photos in the DCIM folder. But the DCIM folder is empty except for a sub-folder called Facebook which contains a few images I've saved from Facebook. No camera pics are present. I've gone into all the folders I can see, including Pictures and PhotoEditor. No pictures are visible.

If I click on the Card icon, I can see a DCIM folder as well. There's a Camera sub-folder there which contains pictures, but they're all old photos transferred from my old phone.

I can't find any pictures I've taken on the Galaxy S4 in any folders anywhere. For that matter, I've used ES File Explorer to browse the folders on the phone itself, and I can't find them using that method either.

The ONLY way I've been able to find the pictures is to use the Gallery app on the phone. All of the pictures show up. As I mentioned, the pictures are available and seem to be on the phone. I just can't locate any folder where they live!

 

[B. Diddy]

Two questions:

1. Are all of the photos taken using the stock camera, or do you have a 3rd party camera app installed? 3rd party camera apps might save photos to a different directory besides DCIM/Camera.

2. Are the photos you see in the Gallery app definitely local, or could they possibly be in the cloud? Do they have a little Picasa logo associated with them? Open the Photos app (the one with the pinwheel icon), swipe in from the left, and select "On Device." Do you still see the photos?

 

[batlash]

Thanks.

1. Yes. The photos are taken using the stock camera. No third party involved.

2. The photos definitely appear to be on the phone. I don't generally use Picasa, but I followed your instructions and this is what I see:


So they appear to be stored on the phone, but well-hidden from anything other than Picasa or the Gallery.

 

[Azalyn Goza]

Hi,

I had the same problem (couldn't find my photos).

The file location for the photos I took on my phone (Galaxy S4) was Computer\SCH-I545\Card\DCIM\Camera BUT my windows 7 pc could not see them. I don't know why. I used "Samsung Kies3" to find the photos and them copy them to my pc.

Hope this helps you.

 

[Rukbat]

Batlash, look in "Phone", in the Pictures" folder - they could be in there. (They're somewhere, or Media Scanner wouldn't have found them, so Gallery wouldn't show them.)

 

[Horace Schitt]

I have the same problem. Someone sent me an MMS with a photo that I want to move to my PC. I saved it to the device (S4) and hooked it up to my PC. Plenty of mainly empty folders show up, but none contain the photos in my Gallery. What is the point of saving a photo to the device if you can't get it off the device without emailing it? For all those folders, couldn't one of them be labeled "Gallery" and perform a useful function?

 

[peteravalos]

I had the same problem and as Azalyn Goza mentioned, using Samsung Kies 3 was the only thing that allowed me to find my photos and videos so I can pull them off of my device. Seems like something gone awry with the Windows 8 driver for me. Just save yourself the aggravation and pull and clean using Kies.

 

[jekndi]

1. Connect your phone via USB to computer.
2. Open the notifications bar at top of phone.
In order to see the details about any notifications you can pull down the notification bar like a drop down curtain, just slide your finger from the top of the screen down-wards. You can then see the details about a notification by pushing the item, e.g. if you have a notification for an SMS or email, you can see the SMS or email text by pushing that its notification. To dismiss all notifications you push the Clear button.
With Android 4 and newer you can also access the notifications from the lock-screen. Furthermore you can dismiss each notification by sweeping it left or right.
3. Scroll down and you will see the little USB symbol and the text "Connected as a media device" with the text "Touch for other USB options" .
4. Tap this item to open
5. Tap the box next to Media device (MTP) so that a check mark is in the box and not Camera (PTP)
6. Go to camera on computer drives and look in Phone>DCIM>Camera. Both photos and mp4 files should now appear.

 

[Michael Ferron]

Great idea but it doesn't work. I'm having the exact same problem with my Galaxy S4 that OP is having. When connected, my computer shows me Phone and Card. In Card, it only shows the hundreds of photos that are saved in my Camera on the phone, as if I just clicked on the Gallery app. However, I also have about a dozen folders where I've categorized photos, videos, and screenshots and none of those folders, or their content, shows. I've changed the setting on the phone to media device (MTP) but I see the exact same data as when I was connected as camera (PTP).

Interestingly, I hid one folder (it was a duplicate that was somehow created when I transferred my data from my other S4 to this S4 using the Samsung Smart Switch app) and that is the only folder that shows up but only under Phone, not Card.

 

[Rukbat]

All folders on the SD card should show up when connecting with USB, even hidden folders, if you're using Windows. At worst, plug the SD card into a card reader and plug that into the PC. (If the PC is running Linux or MacOS, the rules change.)

Also, when you say, "categorized photos, videos, and screenshots", do you mean that you put the actual photo, video and screenshot files in those folders? If not, there's nothing there to see in a PC.

 

[mlburns1]

Thank you, jkdnl! I was having the same problem but none of the suggestions in this forum worked until I got to yours! I'm glad I kept reading down! It was indeed checking the media files box that did that trick!

 

[mjkelly66]

I'm having same problem uploading photos to my macbook pro. The suggestion to click on camera (PTP) worked a good while for me. Android File Transfer still did not show the photos, but dropbox and iPhoto found them and downloaded them automatically once I switched to PTP mode. However, this no longer works either. Dropbox says it found no photos, but there are definitely photos there. Very frustrating. I tried to use the Kies thing months ago when this first started, don't remember what happened except that it didn't work. Any other ideas?

 

[Kween Toluwani]

THANK YOU!!!! Your remedy worked just fine. I am importing the photos as I type!!
I didn't realize those options on the notifications dropdown even existed.....I will add that if you are looking for Facebook, Instagram or Cymera photos, instead of the suggested PHONE<DCIM<CAMERA, substitute CAMERA with your desired file!!

Again, thanks for the good shared information!

 

[cyberpsych]

Please bare in mind that the original post clearly stated that it is the Device DCIM/Camera folder that cannot be found. This is the exact same problem I have.

 

[Gabriela Florentina]

re: I can't move my pictures from the cellphone to the computer

Hello, i've got a Samsung S4 and i try to move my pictures from the cellphone to the computer. I put the cable in the computer and the cellphone and normally it should show me an option when i connect them with : mass storage. And now they dont show me nothing. I mean the cellphone is charching but i dont have the option anymore for download my pics.
Can u help me pls?
Thanks

 

[williamtells]

Try /storage/extSData/DCIM/Camera

 

[P_it]

Hey jekndi,

I had the same issue where I saw just old photos and it worked! Weird...