iPhone Syncing

Sorry if this isn't the best place to post this. I think it might be an iTunes issues, it might be an iPhoto issue.....but not knowing....to me its an iPhone issue.

I like to keep about 400 photos on my iPhone...sometimes its to show people neat things I have seen, but sometimes its just for me as a reminder of friends and family. I live in Canada and often times travel outside the country and often don't have a regular internet connection to my phone. So I would like these photos to actually be on my phone and not just in the cloud.

As best I understand it, every time I sync my iPhone it removes and the photos and puts them back on. I believe this because I have noticed that if the sync happens not to work(rare) or if iPhoto is updating itself the photos are no longer on my phone. At the very least I think that if iTunes cannot find the file, it does not put the photos on the phone. I understand the logic of this.....but my questions is, can I actually permanently put the photos on my phone? Or at the very least manually manage the photos.

I think for the most part pictures of my kids, my wedding, vacations I am going to want to keep there, so the whole process just seems incredibly tedious to have to constantly be pulling them from the file. To be honest its downright annoying that every now and than for whatever reason the photos don't make it back onto my phone.

Beyond all that it just makes the syncing process incredibly slow. My phone can take excess of 20 mins to sync and I believe that is due mostly to "uploading" the photos. While 400 photos might seem more than the average person keeps on their iPhone....the reality is it does not require that large amount of memory and it suprizes me that this process takes so long. (I can upload double that from my camera in less than 5 mins)

I should add my iPhoto isn't quite what it used to be. My computer still seems to be running fine.....but I do notice iPhoto has a lag to it. Funny enough it seems like once it gets going it works ok. Its almost like if I opened iPhoto and walked away for 10 mins there would be no problem, but if I upload it to use it right away it lags until it gets "warmed up". Just adding this in case that is a clue to where my problem is.

Sorry for the mini novel here. I just wanted to include all that I could in hopes of trying to solve this. I feel like its been over a year I have been struggling with this.

Perhaps there is a much better way in which case I'd appreciate the advice. I believe there is an app out there I can probably just upload all the photos too, but I'd really like to keep them in apple's native photo app....it does organize everything nicely

Thanks for any help.

Cheers

The photos should only be refreshed when you sync if they have changed.

What I'd suggest is this:
1. Make sure your have a backup of your Mac or, at the very least, your iPhoto library
2. Hold Option and Cmd then click to open iPhoto - depending on the version you have you'll be presented with some repair options. Work through them in turn to bring your iPhoto library back into tip-top shape.
3. Once that's all done try your iPhone sync again.

Other thoughts:
You could export those photos to a folder then opt to sync that folder in iTunes. This way they are definitely static and unchanged.

Thanks Mr.Plow

I will definitely try the iPhoto thing...even if it just clears up the lag when opening that would be a great fix. If it helps the syncing all the better.

If not

When you say sync to a folder in iTunes.....do you mean a folder other then the one I am using in iPhoto. If so how will I do that? if I do that...will the photos still appear in the native "photos' app. And will they be organized? Just curious.

Thanks again for the help!

You choose the photos you want in iPhoto, then export them to a standalone folder.
Info on how to then sync them can be found here

The only order will be by date then alphabetical by file name but you can group them intum albums on your phone