Monday, November 12, 2012

How do you move pictures from an Android phone to a computer?

Most of us take pictures on our cell phones a lot more than on our digital cameras... so it's convenient that it really is very easy to get pictures over from a phone to a computer.

Method 1: Post the picture on Facebook from your phone, then retrieve it from Facebook on your computer. When you have the picture open on your phone, there should be a "Share" option, where Facebook will be a choice.

Method 2: Email the pictures to yourself, by starting an email on your phone, then attaching the photos. Open the email on a computer and download the attachments, to save the pictures to your computer.

Method 3: Don't let the length of this method's instructions intimidate you... this method is actually really easy, especially once you've done it a time or two, and definitely the best way to move a lot of pictures quickly. Most Androids charge via a Micro USB plug. The full-size USB side of a wire can be plugged into a computer, and the micro side into a phone. The first time you plug the phone into your computer, drivers for the phone should automatically be identified and installed. Don't worry about that... it's complicated, so we should just consider ourselves lucky that the computer and phone can work together to figure themselves out without our help. (If this doesn't start automatically, try changing the type of connection... an option that will show up on your phone) After a few seconds the phone is ready to use on the computer. At this point an Autoplay box should pop up on your computer asking what you want to do with the phone. Click "Open device to view files." If you store pictures both on your phone itself and on your phone's SD card, this is where you click which of those two you're trying to access. Now you'll see some very misleading folders, called "Pictures," "Media," and other things that ought to be where your pictures are. Actually, though, your pictures are in a folder called "DCIM." After you click that, you might need to click "Camera" or similar... then you'll see all pictures from your phone. Scroll down to the bottom to see the most recent. Also, adjust thumbnail size on the top right corner of that window in order to be able to see the pictures, not just their names, and identify the ones you're looking for. Now all you have to do is select the ones you want, and copy them to your computer's picture folder.

As always, let me know what's going on if you run into any trouble, and we'll get this figured out.

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