How do I see my photos?

September 1, 2013 7:25 AM

I've attached my cheap Verizon smart phone to my Toshiba computer, but the photos show up as icons (a little cartoon with a mountain) instead of actual photographs. It would be nice to see what was there without opening up each file individually. I'm OK if you talk to me as if I was six.This is a newish computer running 8. I am unsure where the specs reside.
posted by Prairie to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

It depends on the version of Windows you have but look for a pull down menu in the upper right hand corner, change to Large Icons (well try all the options, Details is quite useful, click the header to sort)
posted by sammyo at 7:40 AM on September 1, 2013

This happens with me too! I have a Samsung Galaxy SII phone and Windows Vista. I've NEVER found a way of displaying thumbnail images for photo files on the phone.
posted by JtJ at 10:39 AM on September 1, 2013

This has to do with the way certain feature phones and modern android (Honeycomb and newer) devices connect to the computer, called PTP/MTP. As far as I know, it just doesn't show thumbnails because it's accessing a list of files, rather than the files themselves.

You aren't the only one with this issue, but short of a program that caches thumbnails locally and knows how to match them up, I don't think there's a way to show them.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 1:10 PM on September 1, 2013

I'm not sure this will help, but just so you know I hardly ever hook my phone up to my PC with a cable (that's what you meant by attached, right?). Instead I use my home WiFi network and the ES File Explorer Android app on my phone to look at the files, copy/cut them to a shared folder on my PC, or the reverse. It has an option to show thumbnails on the phone (I was not sure if you needed the thumbnails to decide what you wanted to copy or move). Also ignore this answer if your PC is not on a home Wifi network, or if your phone is not Android.
posted by forthright at 4:40 PM on September 1, 2013

I'm not sure how helpful this answer is, because I have a different phone (nexus 4, jellybean) and it was one of those situations where you just try a bunch of random things in various orders and finally one of them works, but I had this problem and fixed it.

Two things I remember that might be relevant: (1) In Settings > Apps > All, scroll down to Media Storage and make sure it's running. Possibly clearing data/cache on it might do something if it is running. (2) If you have access to the developer options menu, try playing with that (though on my phone, USB debugging mode is currently off).

What android version are you running? Some ICS phones have an option to switch between Camera Mode (PTP?) and Media Device mode (MTP?) for usb connections. Google those search terms with your phone model for instructions, or look around in the settings menu or status bar dropdown.

I also see advice online to try going to the Windows Device Manager and deleting any relevant driver if one exists. I would probably try this option last and make sure I can reinstall the driver if necessary.


In short, I don't remember how I fixed it, but it is in fact possible to get thumbnail views even with newer versions of android. It may or may not depend on the options available for your phone.
posted by trig at 1:35 AM on September 2, 2013