[HOWTO] How can I transfer photos from my IPhone to my desktop computer?

[Ralf Mardorf]

Hi,

I found out how to directly access iPad photos ;). I don't know why I
was missing this before :D.

Note, I just connected one of my iPads and '$(idevice_id -l)' works,
but there's a problem [1].

[rocketmouse at archlinux ~]$ mkdir ipad
[rocketmouse at archlinux ~]$ ifuse -u $(idevice_id -l) ipad/ 
[rocketmouse at archlinux ~]$ ls -hAl ipad/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  3 rocketmouse rocketmouse  102 Dec 10  2014 AirFair
drwxr-xr-x  6 rocketmouse rocketmouse  204 Aug 15 19:34 Airlock
drwxr-xr-x  5 rocketmouse rocketmouse  306 Dec  9  2018 Books
drwxr-xr-x  2 rocketmouse rocketmouse   68 Apr 12  2015 CloudAssets
drwxr-xr-x  6 rocketmouse rocketmouse  204 Sep 20  2016 DCIM
drwxr-xr-x  2 rocketmouse rocketmouse  136 Aug 16 10:02 Downloads
drwxr-xr-x  7 rocketmouse rocketmouse  238 Apr 12  2015 iTunes_Control
drwxr-xr-x  2 rocketmouse rocketmouse   68 Apr 12  2015 LoFiCloudAssets
drwxr-xr-x 15 rocketmouse rocketmouse 1.1K Aug 15 19:35 PhotoData
drwxr-xr-x  4 rocketmouse rocketmouse  136 Mar 26  2016 Photos
drwxr-xr-x  3 rocketmouse rocketmouse  102 Sep 18  2016 PhotoStreamsData
drwxr-xr-x  2 rocketmouse rocketmouse   68 Sep 17  2017 PublicStaging
drwxr-xr-x  2 rocketmouse rocketmouse  102 Oct 24  2015 Purchases
drwxr-xr-x  2 rocketmouse rocketmouse  170 Mar 26  2016 Radio
drwxr-xr-x  2 rocketmouse rocketmouse   68 Dec 10  2014 Recordings
drwxr-xr-x  2 rocketmouse rocketmouse  102 Sep 17  2017 Safari
[rocketmouse at archlinux ~]$ ls -hAl ipad/DCIM/
100APPLE/ 101APPLE/ 102APPLE/ .MISC/    
[rocketmouse at archlinux ~]$ ls -hAl ipad/DCIM/102APPLE/
total 2.6M
-rw-r--r-- 1 rocketmouse rocketmouse 265K Dec 29  2016 IMG_2238.JPG
-rw-r--r-- 1 rocketmouse rocketmouse 254K Dec 29  2016 IMG_2240.JPG
-rw-r--r-- 1 rocketmouse rocketmouse 201K Jan 19  2017 IMG_2250.JPG
-rw-r--r-- 1 rocketmouse rocketmouse 223K Feb 18  2017 IMG_2270.JPG
-rw-r--r-- 1 rocketmouse rocketmouse 242K Feb 18  2017 IMG_2273.JPG
-rw-r--r-- 1 rocketmouse rocketmouse 339K Jul 27  2018 IMG_2630.JPG
-rw-r--r-- 1 rocketmouse rocketmouse 321K Jul 27  2018 IMG_2631.JPG
-rw-r--r-- 1 rocketmouse rocketmouse 421K Sep  9  2018 IMG_2649.PNG
-rw-r--r-- 1 rocketmouse rocketmouse 263K Sep 21  2018 IMG_2658.JPG
[rocketmouse at archlinux ~]$ cp ipad/DCIM/102APPLE/IMG_2238.JPG /tmp/
[rocketmouse at archlinux ~]$ mirage /tmp/IMG_2238.JPG

On Fri, 16 Aug 2019 02:21:16 +0200, Ralf Mardorf via ubuntu-users wrote:
>The advantage when using a Windows guest in a VM is, that you can make
>a backup of each iDevice. I don't use iCloud for good reasons.

$ man idevicebackup
$ man idevicebackup2

I wouldn't trust such backups, since iOS updates could make a
difference. Btw. even iDevice backups done with iTunes are no complete
backups. In the past I thought that just purchase meta-data is stored,
but I seem to be mistaken with that. Apps are seemingly stored, but not
all the data of apps is stored. Auria Pro for example does exclude the
data from the backups, but provides very comfortable access to the
data, to backup individually.

In the future I much likely will test 'usbmuxd -f -v', too and write
scripts to automate file transfer between e.g. Linux and iPad DAWs, but
I will stay away from 'idevicebackup*' and continue using iTunes for
this purpose. It's an intuitive decision against 'idevicebackup*', not
based on hard facts.

Regards,
Ralf

[1]
An iPad 2 (iOS 9.3.5) provides the desired ID, but an iPad Pro 3rd
generation (iOS 12.4) provides an invalid ID.

I will contact upstream soon.

[rocketmouse at archlinux ~]$ idevice_id -l
12c6f0748b9d3344303a0b5d775136ac4d4a7341
00008027-0014713A2122002E
[rocketmouse at archlinux ~]$ umount ipad 
[rocketmouse at archlinux ~]$ ls -hAl ipad/
total 0
[rocketmouse at archlinux ~]$ ifuse -u $(idevice_id -l) ipad/ 
fuse: bad mount point `00008027-0014713A2122002E': No such file or directory
[rocketmouse at archlinux ~]$ ifuse -u $(idevice_id -l | head -1) ipad/ 
[rocketmouse at archlinux ~]$ ls -hAl ipad/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  3 rocketmouse rocketmouse  102 Dec 10  2014 AirFair
drwxr-xr-x  6 rocketmouse rocketmouse  204 Aug 15 19:34 Airlock
drwxr-xr-x  5 rocketmouse rocketmouse  306 Dec  9  2018 Books
drwxr-xr-x  2 rocketmouse rocketmouse   68 Apr 12  2015 CloudAssets
drwxr-xr-x  6 rocketmouse rocketmouse  204 Sep 20  2016 DCIM
drwxr-xr-x  2 rocketmouse rocketmouse  136 Aug 16 10:02 Downloads
drwxr-xr-x  7 rocketmouse rocketmouse  238 Apr 12  2015 iTunes_Control
drwxr-xr-x  2 rocketmouse rocketmouse   68 Apr 12  2015 LoFiCloudAssets
drwxr-xr-x 15 rocketmouse rocketmouse 1.1K Aug 15 19:35 PhotoData
drwxr-xr-x  4 rocketmouse rocketmouse  136 Mar 26  2016 Photos
drwxr-xr-x  3 rocketmouse rocketmouse  102 Sep 18  2016 PhotoStreamsData
drwxr-xr-x  2 rocketmouse rocketmouse   68 Sep 17  2017 PublicStaging
drwxr-xr-x  2 rocketmouse rocketmouse  102 Oct 24  2015 Purchases
drwxr-xr-x  2 rocketmouse rocketmouse  170 Mar 26  2016 Radio
drwxr-xr-x  2 rocketmouse rocketmouse   68 Dec 10  2014 Recordings
drwxr-xr-x  2 rocketmouse rocketmouse  102 Sep 17  2017 Safari
[rocketmouse at archlinux ~]$ umount ipad 
[rocketmouse at archlinux ~]$ ifuse -u $(idevice_id -l | tail -1) ipad/ 
Invalid device UDID specified, length needs to be 40 characters
[rocketmouse at archlinux ~]$ ifuse -u 00008027-0014713A2122002E ipad/ 
Invalid device UDID specified, length needs to be 40 characters
[rocketmouse at archlinux ~]$ ifuse -u 12c6f0748b9d3344303a0b5d775136ac4d4a7341 ipad/ 
[rocketmouse at archlinux ~]$ umount ipad