Why can't I connect my iPhone 12 to my PC for photos?

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Level 1

4 points

Why can't I connect my iPhone 12 to my PC for photos?

I have an iCloud on my iPhone 12 I use with 2 tb, but storage on my phone 128 gb is full, even tho I pay and use 2 tv of iCloud and it’s mostly free. So I don’t understand how it’s working (not working), but I’m trying to send all my photo library to hard drive through laptop Microsoft. And I downloaded iCloud app for Microsoft, signing in, allow access through my phone, put code number from it on my laptop - and then Pc says that it can’t connect to my apple ID. And that’s it. I’m stuck. What I can do here?

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

iPhone 12, iOS 17

Posted on Mar 18, 2025 12:29 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

sberman

Level 10

272,436 points

Mar 18, 2025 12:57 PM in response to KateDr

See especially “Import to your Windows PC” here.

Transfer photos and videos from your iPhone or iPad to your Mac or PC - Apple Support

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Answer 2

Mar 18, 2025 2:54 PM in response to KateDr

You could try turning on "Optimize iPhone Storage" on the iPhone.

This gives it permission to substitute lower-quality space-saving local copies of photos for full-size local copies. The idea is that iCloud has the full-size copies and the phone can re-download full-size ones on demand.

"Optimize iPhone Storage" is fully automatic - you do not have any control over when the phone will substitute a thumbnail for a full-size photo or vice versa. And it does not let you store some photos "only in iCloud", If you delete a photo on any device connected to iCloud Photos, or in iCloud itself, that is a request to delete the photo everywhere.

But it might help here. Otherwise you're going to need to offload or delete things from local storage on your phone until you free up at least a little bit of room.

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Answer 3

Phil0124

Level 10

216,986 points

Mar 18, 2025 2:35 PM in response to KateDr

iCloud Storage and your iPhone's local capacity are entirely unrelated. Having 2TB of iCloud will not change the physical storage on your device.

click here ➜ What's the difference between device storage and iCloud storage? - Apple Support

Also, iCloud Storage is not an off device backup, it is a sync service so anything on it, must be definition also exist on the iPhone in some way.

If you have iCloud Photos turned on in Settings ➜ Photos and you have iCloud for Windows on your PC, the photos should be available in the Photos entry in My Computer in Windows Explorer.

click here ➜ Download and view iCloud Photos on your Windows computer - Apple Support

click here ➜

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Answer 4

Apr 17, 2025 4:04 PM in response to KateDr

I don't use iCloud for Windows – but I think you might find the following to be helpful:

iCloud for Windows User Guide - Apple Support

Download and view iCloud Photos on your Windows computer - Apple Support

See if a photo or video is downloaded or part of an iCloud Shared Photo Library for Windows - Apple Support

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Answer 5

KateDr Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 17, 2025 3:22 PM in response to Phil0124

Thank you. I found now the way to send photos to a PC. But now I have another question: I have on my phone 18.000 photos, and connecting to computer there’s 4 photos and 13 videos only. And if I open iCloud - 11.000 photos.

but as I know, uploading on external storage something from iCloud - make it impossible to have real photos on external storage. When you open them later - you can’t open the files. So that means I can’t upload photos to PC from iCloud - because I’m gonna have them on hard drive. And it doesn’t work then.

and I don’t see almost any of my photos on computer if I’m trying just send there real photos and videos.

im so confused what to do.

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Why can't I connect my iPhone 12 to my PC for photos?

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