How to transfer photos from my an LG Shine CU720 to a PC computer or laptop.

Question: How do I transfer photos from my new LG Shine CU720 to my PC?

Answer: The user’s guide for the Shine is really vague on how to do this. From page 85 is says: “You can transfer files from a compatible PC to the memory in your phone using the Mass Storage option. When you connect the phone to a PC using the USB cable, this will be displayed as a removable disk through Windows Explorer.”

Not much help at all, and they fail to mention that you have to buy and insert a memory card into your phone before mass storage is even an option!

This article will explain in more detail how to transfer photos from your LG Shine to your PC computer.

What you’ll need

– MicroSD memory card
– USB Data Cable

How to do it

Once you have the memory card and usb cable, here are the instructions you’ll need to follow:

1. Insert the memory card into your phone.
2. Go to Settings, Connection, USB Connection Mode, and select Mass Storage.
3. Connect the phone to the computer with the data cable and your computer should recognize and install a driver.
4. Once the driver is installed, you can view the phone just as you would a removable hard drive. Simply drag and drop any mp3s or photos directly from the phone to your computer (or vice versa).

Other ways to do it

You can also use software that talks directly to the internal memory on your phone, which would keep you from having to buy a separate microSD memory card. The LG Shine already comes with 1 GB of internal memory, which is enough to store about 500 pictures (plenty for taking cell phone snapshots).

Check out a program called Pix’n Tunes (from the same company that makes DataPilot). It comes with a usb data cable and doesn’t require you to buy a memory card. They also have a downloadable version without the usb data cable if you already have one.

With Pix’n Tunes you’ll connect your phone to your computer using a usb data cable, and the software will automatically recognize your phone and will let you transfer images from your cell phone to your PC. It also lets you edit the images, set them as your wallpaper, or assign them as images to your contacts.

The third way you can possibly transfer pictures from your LG Shine to your computer is using Bluetooth. I say possibly, because I’ve heard of nothing but trouble with the Shine’s bluetooth capabilities.

With this approach you’ll first need to turn Bluetooth on (by default it is off, to save battery power). Once Bluetooth is on, then you’ll use it to connect your computer with your phone – a process known as “pairing”, which is a one-time process where you identify your phone to your computer (the part that nobody seems to be able to do).

Go to the Settings — Connectivity — Bluetooth menu (menu shortcut 9, 5, 1). To enable or disable Bluetooth, use the Set Bluetooth menu.

Under Settings, change your phone’s name to something unique, to identify which phone is yours when you want to connect to it.

The Visibility menu option lets you choose if your phone can be found when others do a scan for Bluetooth devices.

If you’re able to pair your phone to your computer, you’ll be able to transfer photos one at a time to your computer and without connection charges. The bluetooth adapter will also recognize your phone for future transfers without having to pair it again.

The main disadvantage to this approach is that you can only transfer pictures one at a time, as opposed to being able to transfer multiple pictures in one shot with the usb data cable options described above.

12 Comments

  1. Dan

    Thanks!
    Searched everywhere for the help I got here. Thanks a ton. I love you man.

  2. Rick L.

    Found your info useful on
    Found your info useful on issue with downloading pix from LG Shine w’addtl RAM. It worked, but if I understand you correctly, as long as I use the add on RAM to store pix, then no-go on using Pix’n’Tunes to download pix from LG to PC. Correct? Pix’n’Tunes only works w/download when pix are on built in RAM then, correct?

    next question…

    I cannot find help with this. Was trying to crop mp3’s for use as ringtones using Pix’n’Tunes. Same files in some cases that I had been using as tones on prior Motorola. LG Shine keeps saying files are too big to use as ringtones. What is max size and preferred format for ringtones?

    • Ricky

      Rick, as far as I know,
      Rick, as far as I know, Pix-n-Tunes should let you copy pictures to your Shine’s internal RAM (so that you don’t have to buy an extra memory card).

    • Sean F

      ringtone size
      I had the same problem when cropping music to make it as a ringtone!! i have garageband on my mac and it has a ringtone feature but that didnt help either so finally after several attempts the max size is below 300kb dont go over it!! the ringtone should be at around 18 seconds no more at all than 18 seconds!!
      hope that helps if you still need it!!!

  3. Anonymous

    What if…
    What if I don’t have a cable though?

  4. Marni

    Data Transfer
    I was ready to tear my hair out while struggling through the LG Shine CU720 user’s guide and trying to figure out how to transfer data from phone to PC. Your post helped me and saved what is left of my hair!!! Thanks a million!!

    • Anonymous

      LG720 Shine
      I understand your direction up to the last step. After that I am not sure where to go to view the picture to drag and drop to the computer. Please help.

  5. Krista

    Okay…My phone has gotten
    Okay…My phone has gotten wet and doesn’t recognize any key stroke I was wondering if there is a possibility that I may recover the contacts and pictures off of the internal memory via usb?

  6. Sandip

    Thanks for the great advice.
    Thanks for the great advice. I almost got it to work after inserting the microSD card. However, while my computer now recognizing the phone as a portable drive, it says that the folder is empty. So it is not reading any of my photo files on the phone. Any advice around this problem?

    • Michele

      I’m having the same problem.
      I’m having the same problem. I follow the directions exactly. I go into My Computer, click on the Removable drive and my pics aren’t there. When I go to my phone, they’re on there, but not in the folder on the computer.

    • Michele

      Sandip, I was having the
      Sandip, I was having the same problem and figured it out. Go into your pictures, select the picture that you want and then select Copy. Make sure that it copies it to the Memory Card and then select the appropriate folder and select Paste. You have to do it for each individual picture though (pain in the butt!). This should work, it worked for me. Good luck! 🙂

  7. LG photos
    Thank you *so much* for this article! I’ve had my phone for months, and didn’t know how to get photos onto my computer. I can’t believe this process isn’t documented in the phone manual. I have a Mac, and didn’t think my phone was compatible, but just making that one simple switch to mass storage in the phone’s settings allowed me to drag images off the phone’s memory card and onto my hard drive. Hooray! Thanks again!

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