Hmmmm…that title makes it seem like this is going to be a deep, heavy conversation about something important.
It’s not.
It’s just that with my new laptop I have a steep learning curve and here’s my latest problem.
A couple weeks ago I took some pictures of my birds (not a surprise) and in particular a juvinile rose breasted grossbeak that was adorable. (I think anyway). And when I went to download those pictures to a specific folder on my laptop I found that some of the numbered images had the same number as older things in that file (maybe a new card, I don’t know) and I panicked and somehow hit something and the new images I just took went somewhere and I have no idea where.
This laptop downloads pretty automatically, I insert the card and it pulls the most recent and not already downloaded images up, I can then cut and paste those into a file of my choice. But once they’ve been downloaded the laptop won’t access them again. It only ever shows me the stuff that’s new.
My old laptop would show me everything on the card regardless of whether it had already been uploaded. Sometimes that was a pain. But sometimes it was handy. Like now.
So I thought about just using the old laptop, finding the image I wanted, uploading that to the old computer and then emailing it to myself for download onto the new computer.
Brilliant, right?
Except the reason I have a new computer is that the hard drive is filled on the old one. And it won’t let me download anything.
So…unless someone has a good idea, and I’m sure there is one out there, I think I have to delete a bunch of stuff on the old computer and then download the picture I want to it.
What do you think? Of course the longer I stall and the more pictures I take, the harder it will be for me to find the one I would like to salvage. So I better get a move on.
If you read all the way to the bottom of this ramble, I’ve posted a picture of a pretty barn as a reward.
August 29, 2020 at 4:53 am
Technology is just one more thing that makes us crazy!
LikeLike
August 29, 2020 at 9:19 pm
There seem to be so many things making me crazy lately.
LikeLike
August 29, 2020 at 5:12 am
I’ve liked this because I feel your pain. You can find instructions to help with anything technical by searching online. The difficulty is knowing what to search for, but if you keep searching you’ll find someone who has had the same problem and explains what to do. Eventually someone will explain it in a way you dare try!
For example, have you tried searching for ‘show all photos downloaded’ adding the name of your computer or operating system? I found these but I have no idea what you are using or whether it will help:
https://www.howtogeek.com/393290/how-to-find-all-photos-stored-on-your-windows-10-pc/
or
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-files-winpc/windows-10-imported-photos-not-in-pictures-folder/a4232ca4-54ba-4169-b7ab-75dd3d9d2f7a
I am assuming you’re not using a Mac because it doesn’t sound like the way mine works.
LikeLike
August 29, 2020 at 5:12 am
And I meant to add ‘Good luck’!
LikeLike
August 29, 2020 at 9:29 pm
Thanks!
LikeLike
August 29, 2020 at 9:19 pm
Thank you for these! I checked them out and got a couple ideas.
LikeLike
August 29, 2020 at 6:13 am
I feel your pain. I’ve been using a new laptop on this trip. I miss my big desktop computer even though it has no more room at the inn for more photos. My editing programs are on that one and they are OLD (I use Photoshop CS3 which was released in 1990). So now I’ve had to learn how to use the new Adobe stuff without having time to use the tutorials (which I hope to some day do).
I love the pretty barn. I wish I could help but I just press buttons and hope for the best (and it’s not always the best that I get). I hope you find a solution.
LikeLike
August 29, 2020 at 9:20 pm
You are braver then me. I am scared to press buttons! Have a safe trip home!
LikeLiked by 1 person
August 29, 2020 at 6:18 am
Yup . Same boat here too. I regularly email myself pictures to avoid the hassle of looking for where my computer decided to put downloaded images.
LikeLike
August 29, 2020 at 9:20 pm
I hate that my compters think it’s OK to just deposit them wherever.
LikeLike
August 29, 2020 at 7:41 am
The photo of the barn is beautiful. I have no specific advice for your laptop woes, but commiserate on the difficulties implicit in using a new one. It’s always something annoying when it comes to new computers of all sorts.
LikeLike
August 29, 2020 at 9:20 pm
I wish stuff would just stay the same.
LikeLike
August 29, 2020 at 8:25 am
My hard drive is not very large and I use a USB thumb drive to store large files like photos. That frees up my hard drive. I also connect the thumb drive to a USB hub. The hub connects to a USB port on the computer and gives me four USB ports to use. The USB thumb drive I am currently using has 256 gigabytes and I think newer ones are larger.
I only use a phone to take pictures. They are automatically loaded to Google Photos. These are the ones I use for WordPress (after shrinking them in size). However, I also copy the photos on the phone to the thumb drive so I have a backup. Then I delete the photos from my phone.
I don’t know if any of that helps. I hope it doesn’t lead you down the wrong path.
LikeLiked by 1 person
August 29, 2020 at 9:22 pm
I do have most of my photos stored on an external hard drive. I don’t know how to access them from there (Husband moved them for me)…but I don’t remember to back stuff up very regularly. Your system sounds like it would work.
LikeLiked by 1 person
August 29, 2020 at 8:31 am
What a lovely barn photo, Dawn. Man, it would be nice if things like this can be easy. It can feel so upsetting trying to find a way to make things like this work. Eventually, I suppose, we can find a way through it to something workable, but that in-between confused time can be the pits.
LikeLike
August 29, 2020 at 9:23 pm
Well, as you know, change is so hard. 🙂
LikeLike
August 29, 2020 at 9:59 am
Move as much to offline storage as possible and free up space on the old computer. I’m old fashioned and like USB drives (you can get 1TB for less than 100 dollars), but cloud storage is good, and that way you can share between computers without emailing…. Nice barn photo 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
August 29, 2020 at 9:24 pm
Yes, I went in and deleted a bunch of stuff that is backed up in two places. Still it is so hard for me to do that. I am scared of the cloud..it seems so….well…cloudy. And I don’t want to be held for ransome of they decide to raise the rates whenever they want to. Is that an unreasonable fear?
LikeLiked by 1 person
August 29, 2020 at 11:00 pm
Trent’s idea of remote storage is excellent. Buy a remote storage device that holds maybe 1TB, have it connect to your laptop via USB cable, then take some nonsense photos and practice with those. Truly, the photos are somewhere on the new computer, such as C/Users/User/Downloads. I have two such remote devices, just in case, they are Seagate Free Agent Disks. You can get a 500GB one at Walmart for $89, but as mentioned, I’d double that to 1TB. It’s a “USB external hard drive”. Computers are so wonderful when they work and you understand them; they are a nightmare when they don’t and you don’t. Let me know if you want more info, Dawn.
LikeLike
August 30, 2020 at 11:03 am
I do a lot of work in the cloud, but I really don’t like putting my personal stuff there….
LikeLiked by 1 person
August 29, 2020 at 10:24 am
Oh, gosh! Good luck!
LikeLike
August 29, 2020 at 9:25 pm
Thanks!
LikeLike
August 29, 2020 at 10:34 am
I’ve got to tell you: that barn photo was worth it! That said, I’m a BIG fan of Google. If there’s something I don’t know (and the more technology changes, the more I don’t know!), I Google it. Generally, you can find somebody somewhere who’s had the same issue … and often, lots of folks willing to share tips and tricks for solving it.I know it’s frustrating to have this pop up when you’re in the middle of trying to do something, but just stop a minute, take a deep breath, and solve it now so you can become productive again (and that advice goes for me, too!)
LikeLike
August 29, 2020 at 9:26 pm
I’d been asking google in a number of different ways how to download pictures that were already downloaded from a memory card but got nothing. I don’t understand why the old laptop will let me download stuff as often as I want, but the new one gives me one shot and that’s it.
LikeLike
August 29, 2020 at 11:21 am
Well I got the reward of the beautiful barn picture but I have no solution for you. I got a hiccup in my Webinar and missed a conference this week and I can’t figure it out also. Good Luck to us all!
Sweet William The Scot
LikeLike
August 29, 2020 at 9:26 pm
Sometimes having everything on line is not a good thing.
LikeLike
August 29, 2020 at 12:07 pm
Hey Dawn–I asked my husband to look at this post. He’s a retired computer tech who still loves playing around with his computers–and mine. His suggestion for the full laptop is to look at external back-up hard drives (Best Buy?). It will plug into the old laptop and show up as another hard drive (the next available alphabet letter). You can create a directory of photos, and copy from the old laptop to the photo directory on the new external hard drive. Email me if you have questions about this. You need to get those photos posted!!
LikeLike
August 29, 2020 at 9:28 pm
Thank you very much Lois! I do have (well husband does) an external backup…and most of my pictures are there (he moved them, I am not at all sure how to do that.) I just ever deleted the stuff off the old laptop so there wasn’t room. Silly of me, but I deleted a bunch today and then went and found most of the pictures I was looking for! Tell your husband thank you for putting somehthing together for me!
LikeLiked by 1 person
August 30, 2020 at 4:37 pm
Anytime, Dawn. He was excited to try and figure this out!
LikeLike
August 29, 2020 at 2:36 pm
Good luck! I have no words of wisdom….
LikeLike
August 29, 2020 at 9:28 pm
Thanks P.J.! Hope you are enjoying the last bits of summer up there! It probably feels like a short season to you!
LikeLike
August 30, 2020 at 7:02 am
Dawn can you search by date? Type the date into the search, specifically in your downloads file or pictures file and see what comes up. If you hover over the search bar once you type it in it should give you a drop down
LikeLike
August 30, 2020 at 4:22 pm
I hate when they change things on new computers. I hate when something so simple seems so complicated. I am right there with you on the picture thing but there is a way you can save the new ones with an extension but I can not tell you how to do it. I had to get a new desktop last December and it drove me nuts for two months. I hate this new wordpress stuff I was use to the other way.
LikeLike
August 31, 2020 at 10:35 am
Technology… we have love/hate relationships with it!
I just had to follow a you tube video on how to clear my caches in the “Other” file on my iPhone. It had taken up 18 GB of space! That’s a lot when you have only 32 GB on your phone. After a few more gray hairs added… I cleared my Others file. Yeeesh! Hours of my life spent doing that!
Have you taken any of your files and copied them to an external hard rive. Or a flash drive? I keep my flash drive inserted or close by. Then that way I can delete what’s on my computer and then just click my flash drive when I need them. It’s a bit more time consuming at first but… it makes life easier later.
Hope it all works for you.
I love the red barn.
LikeLike
September 7, 2020 at 5:33 pm
Don’t get me started on “learning curves” for computer technology (or phones, for that matter). I got a new laptop with Windows 10 last year…still trying to figure some things out–like how to make the new necessity of having televisits with doctor function correctly. Last week was the first such “visit”–I had a meltdown because of some notification I didn’t understand, and the white square which blocked his face, and Dr had to call me instead. He asked if I was feeling suicidal! Have a blessed week, Dawn ❤
LikeLiked by 1 person
September 7, 2020 at 7:54 pm
I can only hope it gets better for all of us.
LikeLike
September 7, 2020 at 8:17 pm
It will…the question unanswerable is “when”.
LikeLike