In the previous iPad tutorial, will explained how to access iPad photos from your computer, and we'll skip the details of this process (you may want to read it if you've never accessed iPad as an external storage device on your computer, whether you are running Windows 7 / Vista / XP, Mac OS X, or a Linux distribution like Ubuntu).
Copy your iPad photos library to your hard drive!
Follow these simple steps to keep your photos on your iPad, but create a copy of either all of them (entire Photos library), or a selection of these pictures, on your computer or laptop: we use Windows 7 in this tutorial, but the process is near identical for other versions of Windows, and even Mac or Linux. We assume that you have already plugged in your iPad to your computer via USB:
- As soon as the following dialog opens in Windows 7, click on the "Open device to view files" button to open your iPad in Windows Explorer. If iTunes automatically opens, you can close it for now.
- Once done, you will be looking at the "Internal Storage" folder inside your iPad - where photos are stored. on Mac OS X, you will find your iPad listed on the left inside Finder - click on it. On Linux, see if Nautilus or other file browser has detected and recognized the iPad you plugged into the computer.
- Then, here's the path of your iPad Photos: starting from the top (you are already looking at the iPad content), all pictures are located in "
Internal Storage > DCIM > 100APPLE". Just double-click on each folder until you see a bunch of picture files (PNGformat) - this is your photos library! - From this point on, the process will be familiar - just press Ctrl+A on Windows or Linux to select all files, or Command+A on Mac OS X, and from there copy these files to another location of your choice.
- You are done! This is how simply you can backup or copy iPad Photos as regular pictures on your computer.
To learn more about backing up and copying files, please see our Windows Vista Tutorial or Windows 7 Tutorial.