Importing Photos and Video from Your Digital Camera

You can import photos and video from your digital camera or camcorder in the same way, either by plugging your camera directly into your computer using a cable, or by removing the memory card from the camera and inserting it into a card reader built into or attached to the PC.

Note: If you plug a high-capacity memory card (32 GB or above in size) into your PC and all that happens is the PC says it’s unformatted, your card reader might be an older model that’s unable to read the newer, higher-capacity memory cards, try plugging your camera into your PC via USB instead.

When you insert your memory card into your PC or plug your camera in via a USB or other cable, you will be taken to the Photos app import screen . Here you will be shown thumbnail images of all the photos on your memory card and all the pictures and videos that are new (at least that have not previously been marked on the memory card as having been imported already) will be selected.

Note: You can bulk select photos by clicking the first in a group to be imported and then holding down the Shift key on your keyboard when you click the last one in the group.

You can select which photos and videos on the camera or memory card you want to import by clicking them. By default, it will create a folder in your Pictures library named for the date (year, month, day) you have imported the photos, but you can rename the file. To change the name of the folder your photos and video will be imported to, perhaps from 2012-06-14 to Amsterdam, October 2012, click/touch the white box at the bottom of the screen to edit the folder name.

Note: If not all of your photos and videos are appearing on the screen, scroll to the right to view more of them, as only so many will be displayed on the screen at one time.

When you are ready to import photos and videos to your computer, click/touch the Import button in the bottom right of the screen to start the import process. When this is complete, you will be asked if you want to open the album you have created to view the imported photos and videos on your computer. 

The imported photos will not be deleted from your memory card or camera during this import process, so you will have to delete them afterward, either using File Explorer on the Windows 8.1 desktop or the camera settings.