Back up videos from iPad

October 5, 2014 4:55 PM

I need a quick way to get video from an iPad onto Dropbox. Help?

I'm selling an iPad Air and before I wipe it I want to save the videos on it. I made them with iMovie, they are clips, not actual rendered movies. There are about 30. What's the fastest way to get them from the iPad into dropbox? If it matters I don't have a Mac desktop, only PC stuff other than this iPad. And I have zero Mac fluency so speak to me as if to a small, stupid child.

Also, bonus, if there are photos on there I want to save those. I have no idea how to even tell if there are photos on this device, much less find them and back them up.

Thanks so much!

posted by stupidsexyFlanders to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

If the iPad is connected to the internet, go to the app store on the iPad and get the Dropbox app. Once you have that, sign into your Dropbox account and let it enable "camera upload" which will upload all of your pictures and videos to a folder in your Dropbox.
posted by buriednexttoyou at 5:13 PM on October 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

What's the catch here? Why can't you install Dropbox?
posted by dmd at 6:09 PM on October 5, 2014

If you don't want to upload *everything* to Dropbox, you can also select them manually by going into the app and clicking on the icon that looks like an ellipsis. It will add them to whatever folder you are in at the time.
posted by dame at 6:13 PM on October 5, 2014

I have no idea if an ipad is the same as an iphone, but if you have a phone connected to a computer via usb, it just shows up in windows explorer as a usb drive (the only files accessible in this manner are photos and videos).
posted by juv3nal at 6:25 PM on October 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

If the videos are "projects" or whatever they call them in iMovie, then you may not be able to transfer them easily using the Dropbox iOS app. You might be able to transfer them by using iTunes.

If you want to see if there are photos on the device, look at the app called... "Photos."
posted by Good Brain at 7:51 PM on October 5, 2014

I transfer videos and movies all the time from the work iPad mini to my personal Windows 7 laptop. I actually find it much easier doing that than fussing around with Dropbox, iCloud, etc.

1. Connect iPad to computer via USB.
2. Answer yes to prompt asking "do you trust this computer?".
3. Use Windows Explorer to open device to view files. (My pathway is Apple iPad --> Internal Storage -->DCIM --> 860OKMZO (This is for movies. No guarantee your iPad will have an identical path. )
4. Click on the clip thumbnail and copying starts to automatically happen.

Then if you actually need them in Dropbox transfer files as you normally would. It's fast and it's dead simple.
posted by sardonyx at 9:22 PM on October 5, 2014