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.

 

[Dharmistha]

I can't find pictures on phones and it's not connected to the PC with USB

 

[brindis]

I have the same problem with BLU phone, it used to show all folders & files when connected as MTP to Windows (please don't ask me to reboot, check USB mode, etc. since I did all of that).
Today I connected it and the phone memory looks ok, while the SD card memory is showing folders... but when I navigate into DCIM, the Camera folder is not shown (and yes, I checked that even hidden folders should be shown in Windows).
All the photos are in the phone, as they are shown in the Gallery. From the gallery I looked at the pictures' details and yes, they are in sdcard DCIM/camera folder.
The I turn the phone off, extracted the card and plugged it into the PC (using adapter). And all the contents is shown!
So I got the pictures into my PC, but I would like to know what is wrong with Android...
/jorge

 

[Diana Diehl]

I have a Samsung Galaxy S5, completely updated. I am using Windows 8.1. I am having the same problem.

• I connected the computer to the phone via standard USB cable.
• My USB transfer setting is Media Device MTP as advised above.
• My data storage shows that photos are taking a huge amount of space on my device (not my SD card); I want to move most of them off
• When I use Windows Explorer to view the Phone folder on my Samsung device, I find the DCIM folder where I should see my photos. It has other folders (like Facebook), There are no photos visible anywhere.

Where THE heck are my photos? My phone is full, and I need them off there. No way I'm emailing all these things. I am not new to smart phones and computers. I have viewed my phone as a storage device and removed photos and files from other phones. What's with the stealth photos?

 

[Diana Diehl]

That sounds like the external SD Card. On my phone, my photos show up as taking a huge portion of the phone device, not the SD Card. Yet they are invisible via normal file transfer methods (Windows Explorer with phone attached and set to MTP media transfer setting).

 

[Nick Dupont]

This worked for me.

 

[Nick Dupont]

This worked for me.

 

[ChristianOB]

Hi,
I have a Galaxy J5 and experienced the exact same problem, namely:
1- you configure the phone to put the pictures on the SD card (DCIM/Camera)
2- you then move some of these pictures into albums
3- when you connect your phone to your PC (over USB), the pictures in the DCIM/Camera directory of the SD card are shown but pictures from the albums are not visible (neither the pictures not the directory)

What I found is that the albums are created on the phone and not the SD card - you find the albums in Phone/DCIM.

It is weird that Samsung creates albums in the phone and moves them there despite the camera is configured to store the images on the SD card. You would expect the albums to reside on the SD card ...

Christian

 

[Sunil Bandaru]

I have a LG Nexus 5 and I have the same issue. I think the reason is: I have recently transferred some photos from my PC to phone.

I have done the following and it worked. Transferred the photos from Camera folder to some dummy folder using a file manager and deleted the Camera folder. Then clicked a new pic which automatically created the Camera folder. Then I transferred back the photos from the dummy folder.

 

[belodion]

I have a LG Nexus 5 and I have the same issue. I think the reason is: I have recently transferred some photos from my PC to phone.

I have done the following and it worked. Transferred the photos from Camera folder to some dummy folder using a file manager and deleted the Camera folder. Then clicked a new pic which automatically created the Camera folder. Then I transferred back the photos from the dummy folder.

Welcome as a new member and thank you for the tip.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[rfontoura]

I had the same problem:

• my pictures and videos captured with camera are visible on the camera, but not on my PC
• I have a LG G3 and my pictures and videos captured with camera are saved on a external SD card
• On my PC I use Windows 8.1
• Looking at information on pictures and videos a file manager at the smartphone, the path to these files are /storage/external_SD/DCIM/Camera as expected

Here's an alternative solution based on a post from a colleage's post:

1. If you don't have, install a file manager on smartphone (LG G3 comes with one of these)
2. On the file manager, go to /storage/external_SD/DCIM
3. Select to copy the "Camera" folder to another one (for example, on /storage/external_SD/temp directory)
4. Now, this directory is visible on Windows 8.1 and you can see the pictures and videos

 

[Rodger Tamblyn]

SEE UPDATE BELOW!.....Same problem here. I can see both phone and SD card on the PC. I have set my photos to go automatically to my card and up until 4 weeks ago all has been well.. Now..there are some photos in DCIM on the SD card visible but many are not. I have also made a folder for keeping photos permanently, and three pictures are visible in it and 40 others are not. If I take out the SD card and put it directly in the PC, I see all the images. File-manager on my phone also sees all the images as does my default Google viewer. It is only when I connect to the PC they all vanish. I have tried it as USB file transfer and USB photo transfer (PTP) ...none of these work to make the images visible. I have reset the phone, factory reset...no help there. I have copied the photos off the card and recopied them back on the card....still nothing visible. I have run out of ideas.

UPDATE-- Solved my problem. I used filemanager to MOVE all my images to the camera folder. They are now all visible on the PC. Next I used file manager to delete the folders I had previously created. I then connected to the PC and and remade all the folders again on the SD card....(I like my pictures to be in separate folders, like Albums). I then moved all the photos into the separate folders..... and hey presto!... I can see them all again on the PC. So it would appear that the folders were corrupt?..who knows?

 

[findfixproblem]

Re: Can't find pictures on Galaxy S5 when connected to PC with USB

After reading the text here I found the fix for my Samsung Galaxy s5.

After connecting the usb cable from phone to computer, do a vertical top down swipe on the phone from top to bottom. This special swipe results in a unique list of notifications status, among which one is the "SD card" which should be ignored, the other is the three wire pitch fork symbol of the usb with text such as "used for charging". You need to tap on that usb "charging" line which should result in a list of uses for the usb, among which is "use for transfer files" which you should tap on to select. This should result in the computer opening a display window with a folder for "CARD" and one for "PHONE". you can open the CARD to get to DCIM to get to CAMERA to get to the pictures and video files to transfer.

 

[oreostaab]

I had this same problem on my Galaxy Note 2 (yes, I'm behind the times, but it was a hand-me-down and it works just fine). What jekndi posted above fixed my problem. Now I can see all my pictures on the computer again, not just those taken before 6-27-16.
THANKS jekndi!!

 

[PawloA]

I simply move files to and from the DCIM/camera folder to and from my albums where they are stored on the phone. any files in the camera folder can be moved on and off the phone to the PC.

 

[Robert Ganoush]

Not sure if this has been answered but I found my pictures after putting all into albums. The pics were moved from my card (trying to save phone memory) to the Pictures directory on the phone. Found them by plugging into my PC and searching for *.jpg. That found them all tucked away.

 

[hasib uzzaman]

I was suffering with same problem. Now I have solved the issue. After connecting your phone with PC via USB right click to the Phone Drive Icon. You will have an option "Import photo and video" just click it and enjoy. Cheers.

 

[Carla Rahn Phillips]

What finally worked for me was:
Plug phone to USB port on computer;
Pull down the notifications list and select to connect the phone as a media device;
On the PC, look in Windows Explorer for the folders in My Computer;
Select SCH-1545;
Select Card, then DCIM, then Camera, and the pictures appeared and could be copied to the PC.

 

[Tonymontana1981]

I am having this same issue on both of my Galaxy S4's when connected via usb in MTP mode. i have windows 7 and 10 but the same thing happens. some folders are viewable but most simply are't there. I even went as far as to try tricking the system. one folder I'd created was showing the images within, so I spent a good hour copying ALL photos and videos to that folder, reconnected usb and was surprised to find that the ONLY files displayed were the original images in that folder. ALL photos and videos were captured using the stock camera software and stored on a combination of internal (phone) memory and the sd (external) card. The only solution I can think of is to invest in a card reader to copy the files. Microsoft appears to have a problem with Android devices.

 

[ReadyRedRed]

That works! Thanks!

 

[LaureDesmet]

Hi, I was having the same problem, the suggestion in this link solved it for me => Where are images stored on Android? What is DCIM thumbnails folder? | How to recover