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

[Ralf Mardorf]

Hi,

just a heads up, now a workaround via USB stick or USB drive might be a
good solution. With the current updates to iOS 13+ the OS for iPads
migrated from iOS to iPadOS, so I don't know how much the features of an
iPad differs from those available by an iPhone

Now it's possible to use USB stricks and USB drives with an iPad. I
don't know, if for iOS, IOW for iPhones this feature is provided, too.

I had no time to order a cheap adapter cable, so I tested with an
expensive adapter, that probably isn't required for this purpose.

I successfully tested an Apple iPad Pro 12.9-inch, 3rd generation, 1TB,
Wi-Fi, with a Toshiba disk, in a fantec DB-ALU3e enclosure, that is
powered by it's own power supply, formatted by a Linux computer and
connected with the iPad Pro by an Apple USB-C Digital AV Multiport
Adapter, while the charging cable wasn't connected.

Some CLI information about the iPad Pro and the USB drive, when
connected with the Linux PC:

[rocketmouse at archlinux ~]$ ideviceinfo -u $(idevice_id -l)|grep -eClass -eModelN -eProductV|sed 's/ProductVersion/iPadOS/'
DeviceClass: iPad
ModelNumber: MTFR2
iPadOS: 13.1
[rocketmouse at archlinux ~]$ sudo smartctl -i /dev/sdf|grep Fam
Model Family:     Toshiba P300
[rocketmouse at archlinux ~]$ lsblk -oTYPE,NAME,PTTYPE,TRAN,VENDOR,MODEL|grep -eN -edf\ 
TYPE NAME    PTTYPE TRAN   VENDOR   MODEL
disk sdf     dos    usb    ASMT     TOSHIBA_HDWD110
[rocketmouse at archlinux ~]$ lsblk -oTYPE,NAME,FSTYPE,LABEL,SIZE,FSUSED,FSAVAIL,FSUSE%,PARTFLAGS|grep -eN -edf
TYPE NAME    FSTYPE  LABEL           SIZE FSUSED FSAVAIL FSUSE% PARTFLAGS
disk sdf                           931.5G                       
part ├─sdf1  ext4    u4.fantec     622.3G   287G  293.4G    47% 
part ├─sdf2  vfat    u4.fat32      103.3G    32K  103.3G     0% 
part ├─sdf3  exfat   u4.exfat      103.4G   3.8M  103.4G     0% 
part └─sdf4  hfsplus u4.hfs        102.6G 195.2M  102.4G     0%

That's what I tested, when the USB drive was connected to the iPad Pro:

After opening the File app and selecting "Browse" the "Location" widget
does not show the ext4 partition, but it shows the fat32, exfat and
hfs+ partitions, all by their label. Using lower case and a dot for the
label of a fat32 partition might not work with Windows, but it does for
Linux and iPadOS.

For testing purpose I selected "On My iPad" > "Auria Pro", the folder
of a DAW app and then selected an audio project, chose "More" > "Copy" >
"u4.fat32" > "Paste". No issue at all, so I continued by selecting
"On My iPad" > "Auria Pro", selecting the same project, followed by
"Move" to "u4.exfat", then creating a new folder and chose "Copy".
This worked, too. At next I opened the Photos app, selected 2 photos,
chose "Save to Files" > "u4.hfs" and "Save". It worked like a charm as
well.

When finished I connected the drive to the Linux PC again, to take a
_deeper_ look at the partitions:

[rocketmouse at archlinux ~]$ ls -hAl /mnt/u4.{fat32,exfat/testfolder,hfs} 
/mnt/u4.exfat/testfolder:
total 256K
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4.0K Sep 26 07:31 '._monomatch freeze.Project'
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 128K Sep 26 07:31 'monomatch freeze.Project'

/mnt/u4.fat32:
total 96K
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root  32K Sep 26 10:58  .Spotlight-V100
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4.0K Sep 26 11:20 '._monomatch freeze.Project'
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root  32K Sep 16 23:54 'monomatch freeze.Project'

/mnt/u4.hfs:
total 5.7M
dr-xr-xr-t 1 root root    2 Sep 26 03:28 '.HFS+ Private Directory Data'$'\r'
drwx------ 1  501  501    4 Sep 26 10:58  .Spotlight-V100
-rw-r--r-- 1  501  501 2.6M Sep 26 11:42  IMG_3100.HEIC
-rw-r--r-- 1  501  501 3.2M Sep 26 11:42  IMG_3101.HEIC


The hidden folders and hidden files were created by iPadOS. By this
kind of file transfer, the HEIC pictures aren't automatically converted
to a more common file format. On Linux it's possible to convert the
pictures by command line. Users who aren't comfortable with command
line, maybe those who migrated from Windows to Linux, could use the
cross-platform image editor GIMP. Most of the partitioning could be
done without command line, using GParted. It can create the partition
table, hfs+ partitions with a label and fat32 partitions with a label.
Btw. if you try to name a fat32 partition "u4.fat32" with GParted, it
automatically names it "U4FAT32". I named it by command line, with root
privileges running "fatlabel /dev/sdXY LABEL". GParted can't create an
exfat partition, but it can create an unformatted partition. An
unformatted partition can be formatted to exfat by command line, by
running "mkfs.exfat -nLABEL /dev/sdXY" with root privileges.

Regards,
Ralf