Move pictures from SD card to internal memory on a new phone

[kenlovejoy]

I have a handset that I've been using for a while where I configured it to store all media on the SD card, because it only had 16GB internal memory.

I have upgraded my handset to a 32GB and now want all my images on the new phone. I don't want them on the SD card again because a) I think it's going to fail (unmounts all the time) and b) the lag was too slow when taking photos.

I presume the operation is along the lines of:
- insert card in new phone
- move the media to folders on the new phone from the SD card

If this assumption is correct, what do I move and to where?

Thank you!

 

[Tim1954]

Insert SD card. Open file manager. Tap edit (or the three dots in top right corner). Select the media you want to move. Tap the dots again. Select move.....

 

[treetopsranch]

I would recommend Copy and Paste as moving has not worked correctly for some users. (The file gets lost and it's gone from SD card so you can't recover) Once you determine that the file was copied correctly to your internal memory, you can remove the original file from the SD Card.

 

[ManiacJoe]

COPY, not move, the files to the internal storage.
Verify that the copy worked.
Restart the phone.
Verify that the files are still on the internal storage.
Then you can optionally delete the files from the SD card.

Lots of reports suggest that Android can drop the ball when moving files between the internal storage and the SD card. When that happens, the files are lost forever.

 

[treetopsranch]

Well, that's almost exactly what I said.

 

[kenlovejoy]

Thanks for the tips.

On the SD card I have two folders:

/DCIM/100MEDIA/
/HTC_MakeMoreSpace/Gallery/

The former has photos in it with ascending filenames. This are my camera photos. But, the timestamps only go back to 2016-02-05 prior to which all the timestamps are identical! Does the Android device use the EXIF information or this Modified/Created time?

The MakeMoreSpace folder has all sorts in it! Some are whatapp images, and some appear to be from a downloads folder. And some from Facebook and some screenshots. But there are also image files from my camera, i.e. with names like IMAGxxxx, so appear to be from my camera too. But some of these have the same filenames as the camera folder 100MEDIA. Interestingly, they have the timestamp 2016-02-03.

- This chaos is a nightmare. Presumably I just copy the images from 100Media on the SD card to 100Media on the new phone, and the camera will continue incrementing the filenames?

- Now, what to with the other images? How does Android detect images in it's gallery? For example, if I open whatsapp or messenger to attach a picture, which folders on the phone is it using? Where do I store the rest of the images to make sure they are picked up by the operating system?

- Additionally, I have Google Photos backing everything up to the cloud. What I don't want to happen is for all these photos to be duplicated as backups when I put them on the new phone. I don't want two copies in the cloud!

Thanks for the help!

 

[kenlovejoy]

Thanks for the tips.

On the SD card I have two folders:

/DCIM/100MEDIA/
/HTC_MakeMoreSpace/Gallery/

The former has photos in it with ascending filenames. This are my camera photos. But, the timestamps only go back to 2016-02-05 prior to which all the timestamps are identical! Does the Android device use the EXIF information or this Modified/Created time?

The MakeMoreSpace folder has all sorts in it! Some are whatapp images, and some appear to be from a downloads folder. And some from Facebook and some screenshots. But there are also image files from my camera, i.e. with names like IMAGxxxx, so appear to be from my camera too. But some of these have the same filenames as the camera folder 100MEDIA. Interestingly, they have the timestamp 2016-02-03.

- This chaos is a nightmare. Presumably I just copy the images from 100Media on the SD card to 100Media on the new phone, and the camera will continue incrementing the filenames?

- Now, what to with the other images? How does Android detect images in it's gallery? For example, if I open whatsapp or messenger to attach a picture, which folders on the phone is it using? Where do I store the rest of the images to make sure they are picked up by the operating system?

- Additionally, I have Google Photos backing everything up to the cloud. What I don't want to happen is for all these photos to be duplicated as backups when I put them on the new phone. I don't want two copies in the cloud!

Thanks for the help!

 

[ManiacJoe]

The former has photos in it with ascending filenames. This are my camera photos. But, the timestamps only go back to 2016-02-05 prior to which all the timestamps are identical! Does the Android device use the EXIF information or this Modified/Created time?

The Android file system controls the timestamps on the files. The file create time is the time that the file is created/copied. The EXIF data in the photo contains the image capture date and the image edit date. These two sets of dates have nothing to do with each other.

Many picture viewing apps wrongly look at the file date instead of the EXIF date. If you need a picture viewing app that gets it right, try "Piktures" by Diune:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.diune.pictures


For your images created by your camera, take a look at the names it places on the files. Some apps use IMG_nnnn.jpg where nnnn is just an incrementing number, not the best naming convention. Other apps use yyyymmdd_hhmmss.jpg, better for always giving you a unique name. It also makes sorting by capture date simple as it is the same as sort by name.

The MakeMoreSpace folder has all sorts in it! Some are whatapp images, and some appear to be from a downloads folder. And some from Facebook and some screenshots. But there are also image files from my camera, i.e. with names like IMAGxxxx, so appear to be from my camera too. But some of these have the same filenames as the camera folder 100MEDIA. Interestingly, they have the timestamp 2016-02-03.

I don't know what do say here. The name of the folder suggests it is unnecessary.

- This chaos is a nightmare. Presumably I just copy the images from 100Media on the SD card to 100Media on the new phone, and the camera will continue incrementing the filenames?

A reasonable assumption, but still an assumption. Test it and find out.

Also check the settings in your camera app. Some let you save the new images directly to the SD card.

- Now, what to with the other images? How does Android detect images in it's gallery? For example, if I open whatsapp or messenger to attach a picture, which folders on the phone is it using? Where do I store the rest of the images to make sure they are picked up by the operating system?

The media indexing service looks in all the folders and catalogs the images, except for the folders marked "no media here". The picture viewing apps read the image catalog.

- Additionally, I have Google Photos backing everything up to the cloud. What I don't want to happen is for all these photos to be duplicated as backups when I put them on the new phone. I don't want two copies in the cloud!

Someone else will need to address Google Photos, as I don't use it.