Transferring android photos to laptop

[Logo]

A friend needs to free up some space on her phone to continue to use WhatsApp. I've been able to cut and paste her camera photos to her laptop but I wasn't able to move WhatsApp photos. Is there a simple way of doing this? All I can think of is adding a memory card to her phone to give more storage space. Googling just shows up the google cloud - and I know nothing about this. Does anyone have a simple solution? Thanks!

 

[Jazz01]

If you connect the phone to a laptop/computer via USB, you can access the phone from there (might need to change settings on the phone to go from "usb charge" to "media device /transfer" once you connect via the USB cable).

On the laptop, open the "phone" folder, go to "phone storage -> WhatsApp -> Media -> WhatsApp Images". Can then grab the photos from there & transfer to the laptop.

 

[Logo]

On the laptop, open the "phone" folder, go to "phone storage -> WhatsApp -> Media -> WhatsApp Images". Can then grab the photos from there & transfer to the laptop.

I did transfer camera photos from phone to laptop with no problem. A WhatsApp folder was also displayed but when I tried to access the photos it searched for ages and I wasn't able to access them on the laptop.

 

[Jazz01]

What are the folders within the "WhatsApp" folder? Can you go into any of the folders within there?

 

[Logo]

What are the folders within the "WhatsApp" folder? Can you go into any of the folders within there?

Yes. The WhatsApp folder had a sub-folder called photos or media. I opened this to transfer photos but the search function went on forever so I had to give up.

 

[Jazz01]

Are there a lot of photos in there? Can you access that Images folder from the phone itself, via the "file manager" app?

 

[Logo]

Are there a lot of photos in there? Can you access that Images folder from the phone itself, via the "file manager" app?

The search went on too long. Not sure what you mean by "file manager" app. I know zilch about apps. Basically I'm just connecting her phone to a laptop and transferring any photos available from phone to laptop to free up space on her phone.

 

[Jazz01]

I know zilch about apps.

Anyone that you could ask, who would know about phone storage?

On the phone itself (not connected to the laptop/PC), you have the apps (applications) that are on the phone. Within that list, there should be an app called "File Manager". Using that, it's similar to opening a folder in a laptop.

You could also free up space on the phone by clearing out the "cache" of each app. Easily done manually, but a little tedious - go to "Settings" -> "Apps" -> Click on an app name, and then "clear cache". Repeat for each installed app.

I understand when you say that you know nothing about "apps", but not much knowledge is needed to get the issue sorted.

 

[Logo]

Thanks for taking the time to help Jazz01. I will try to follow your instructions. Although I don't use Apps on my phone I thought that they were like emails and didn't take up storage space.

 

[shweeney]

Install Google Photos and go into the Menu->Device Folders to choose which folders you want backed up to your google account. WhatsApp images will be one of the folders - you can then access all your photos from https://photos.google.com with the added bonus that they're all backed up if you lose or break your phone.

 

[Jazz01]

You could also free up space on the phone by clearing out the "cache" of each app. Easily done manually, but a little tedious - go to "Settings" -> "Apps" -> Click on an app name, and then "clear cache". Repeat for each installed app.

I know, quoting my own post but, there is a quicker way to clear the cache for the apps, go to "settings" --> "storage", you'll see an item called "Cached data" (should be present in later versions of the phone OS). Tapping this will give you the option to erase everything. While this may have some unintended effects like making things take longer to load or forcing you to re-login to apps, it can help performance to do so once in a while. ( Info taken from here )

Although I don't use Apps on my phone I thought that they were like emails and didn't take up storage space.

Yes, some Apps can take up a lot of space relative to the limited phone storage. I find it helps to to clear the app's cache out everything couple of months.

 

[AlbacoreA]

Thanks for taking the time to help Jazz01. I will try to follow your instructions. Although I don't use Apps on my phone I thought that they were like emails and didn't take up storage space.

If you open a photo or attachment to look at it, its downloaded to your phone.

So people who keep years of emails and whatsapp messages saved, may actually be taking up loads of space on their phone. Clearing the cache will help a little as per the previous post.

But in general, you should be deleting old messages once you no longer need them. Archiving doesn't delete them.

 

[AlbacoreA]

Install Google Photos and go into the Menu->Device Folders to choose which folders you want backed up to your google account. WhatsApp images will be one of the folders - you can then access all your photos from https://photos.google.com with the added bonus that they're all backed up if you lose or break your phone.

I think google photos is a terrible product. So little control over everything.

That said if you are kinda person who never backs up their phone, or organise their photos them google photos might save your bacon.

 

[shweeney]

I think google photos is a terrible product. So little control over everything.

That said if you are kinda person who never backs up their phone, or organise their photos them google photos might save your bacon.

for backup it's fine - set it up and forget about it. I have unlimited google storage through my (former) university, so I have all my photos and videos backing up there automatically. I don't really use if for organisation (tend to us iPhoto which has it's own issues), but you can go back through the timeline to find specific photos if necessary so I'm happy enough with it.

Flickr is another option - it has 1TB of free storage which is enough for most people (and you can pay for a pro account if you use RAW or whatever).