iPhone 5 or earlier Getting Photos off iPhone 4 (Can't?)

[Danley]

This has me at the end of my patience; I have an iPhone 4 (iOS 7 .) There are maybe ~2k photos still on it that I want to get off and can't.

Back when I was an active user of this phone, it would take forever (maybe a couple hours) to allow me to access my pictures (as a folder or through Import Photos,) after plugging it into either my Mac of my PC. I've now tried keeping it plugged in (unlocked of course) to both my Mac, and my PC (inc. my Win Vista PC, that I always used to use when this was my main phone) for multiple days and it won't allow me to open a folder with my pics or import. The phone will sync iTunes and charge, but I can't get to my pictures to copy them off the phone.

I've tried the Photos, Image Capture, and iPhotos Mac programs. This phone is too old to use airdrop. Any other ideas how I can get my pictures off?

 

[Applejuiced]

Maybe create a backup of it with iTunes.
Then restore it with iTunes.
Then restore using backup to see if it lets you copy all those pictures from your phone back to your computers hard drive.

 

[Danley]

Stupid solution worked. Backed up in iTunes. Got my old 5s, wiped it and restored the backup to that. Retrieved photos. Ugh, at least I'm done with it.

 

[Newtons Apple]

Stupid solution worked. Backed up in iTunes. Got my old 5s, wiped it and restored the backup to that. Retrieved photos. Ugh, at least I'm done with it.

You were lucky. If the images are important, you need to keep them backed up, especially on an old device.