Lightroom recognizing only some photos from iphone, puts some in wrong date folder

[katiem8533897]

Hello,

This is my first time on the forums but I've been a heavy lightroom user for about 9 years now with little to no problems.

I have Lightroom CC up to date on a Desktop PC with Windows 10. My iphone is a 6S with up to date iOS 10.2.1.

To get photos from my phone onto my computer, I connect the iphone via USB. In lightroom, my import dialog is Copy, don't import suspected duplicates, and organize by date with format 2017/2017-01-26 into My Lightroom Pictures folders on my harddrive. This has always worked flawlessly.

Last month, I plugged the phone into the computer as always, and Lightroom only recognized some (perhaps 2/3) of the photos and videos from my phone. Which ones it recognized seemed random. I even tried unchecking "don't import suspected duplicates" just in case that feature was malfunctioning, but it didn't change. I imported the photos anyway, and keyworded them. Restarted my computer, made sure everything was updated, tried again, same result.

I ended up making sure my Microsoft Onedrive had all my iphone pics in it, and then used that to get them onto my computer's desktop, and then into my lightroom catalog. This got them all there, but the file names are like 20348239o_jkwehrkhewkhsdkfh.iOS.JPG instead of the usual DSCN3425.JPG. The result here, is that lightroom wasn't able to recognize duplicates because the file names are different, so now I have a bunch of dupes and no way to find them.

Anyway, Then I realized that of the photos it did import, many of them are in the wrong date folder! For example, a bunch of photos taken on December 25, with the metadata saying December 25, some are in December 25, some in December 26, some December 3, some January 4, etc. Typically only off by a few days or weeks. Also seemingly at random.

After several weeks of leaving everything along, I came back and tried to import more pics from my iphone and have the same problem. No rhyme or reason as to why some pics are there and others arent, or why some dates are wrong and others are correct.

I have a new Microsoft Surface Book with Lightroom CC installed and just tried to import from my phone onto it, and it has the same problem: not recognizing all the photos, and some have wrong dates.

Does anyone have any idea why this is happening or how to fix it? I'm a professional artist and need my systems to work.

Thank you for your time.

[Geoff the kiwi · Accepted solution]

I have seen similar issues on a Mac.... I use Image Capture to download and it does the same (missing random files) so I think it is an Apple issue ..... Happened in iPhone 4S and 7+

[noelleleigh]

But once the photos are in the library, the Capture Time metadata is correct. Couldn't Lightroom just use that to determine which folders to put the photos in? What other information could it be using that causes it to be so wrong?

[johnrellis]

But once the photos are in the library, the Capture Time metadata is correct. Couldn't Lightroom just use that to determine which folders to put the photos in? What other information could it be using that causes it to be so wrong?

I believe that when you import via a USB cable, LR uses the industry-standard Picture Transport Protocol (or an extension).  In the protocol, the capture date is transmitted separately from the photo, and three separate pieces of software are involved: The client side of PTP on the phone / camera, the operating system library on the desktop computer implementing PTP, and LR invoking PTP. Lots of opportunities for confusion over dates (and software engineers are especially prone to date confusion, especially time zones), and it may not be LR's fault (but it may be): Lightroom: Import: Wrong folder names organizing by date around midnight when using camera USB | Pho...

The date issues when naming folders and files goes away when LR imports from a memory card using a card reader, because LR is using a different protocol, the FAT file system,  to directly access the photos.  FAT doesn't provide information about photo metadata, so LR has to read it directly from photo's metadata.

Phones don't have card readers, but they often let you use Mac Finder or Windows File Explorer to directly access the photo files and copy them to your desktop.  Importing those copies from your computer has avoided the folder-naming bug for many people.  (But it requires an annoying extra step to copy the photos to your computer first.)

[Rage_Mage]

I have same set up and the exact same issue and it is driving me insane. And yes when I attempt to import the photos off of my iphone 6s directly through Windows 10 photos the dates all look good and everything is in the correct order.

HOWEVER

I only want to import a portion of all the images from my phone, because most of them have already been uploaded before this problem arose. This would seem like and easy "select the first image, then hold down the shift key and select the last image" and all those images would be highlighted for selection and download.

But the shift key thing doesn't work. So I have to go through and select hundreds of photos and videos ONE CLICK AT A TIME.

Is it just me or did software use to be a lot easier to deal with? Apple and Lightroom not playing along? The shift key not working to select multiple files? I have no idea what's happening anymore

[jonp39940992]

I had the same problem and finally worked it out - Go to Settings / Photos & Camera on your iPhone. Then you need to untick 'Optimise iPhone Storage' and select 'Download and Keep Originals'. Otherwise many of your pictures are stored on the iCloud and not on the phone itself which is why LR can't see them.

You will then need to make sure there is enough space on your phone for all your pictures. You can check this by going to Settings / General / Storage & iCloud Usage. If you look at 'Manage Storage' on both of them you can see how much room is taken up on 'iCloud' by photos and and then delete stuff to make sure there is enough in 'Storage'.

In my experience once you do this it will (fairly slowly) download your pictures back on to your phone and magically you'll be able to see them all in Lightroom as they come in (keep your phone unlocked).

This doesn't explain the date issue - just the missing pictures.

[anke55mom]

Thank you so so much, my photos are back 🙂