How to transfer pictures from your computer to a digital photo frame.

Digital picture frames are awesome. I have one at work, my wife has one at home, and we gave my parents one for Christmas this year.

Transferring pictures from your computer to a picture frame is a matter of copying the pics to a memory card or usb flash drive, and then plugging the memory card into your picture frame.

Here’s a step-by-step guide for loading pictures onto a digital picture frame:

Step 1: Find the pictures on your hard drive

If you’re using Windows Vista, then your pictures will most likely be located in the Pictures folder under your User folder (C:\Users\YourName\Pictures).

Expand the Pictures folder and find the photos that you’d like to view on the picture frame. If possible, copy them all to a single folder location, as that will make the next step much easier.

Step 2: Copy the pictures to an SD Micro memory card, or to a USB Flash Drive

Find the SD Micro memory card slot on the side of your laptop, or in the front of your desktop, and insert the card. Memory cards are dirt cheap these days, and you can get a 2GB card for under $10 on Amazon

If you don’t have a memory card slot, you can buy a memory card reader for about $15 that will plug into one of your USB ports. You can also use a flash drive, which you’d also insert into an available USB port on your computer.

When you insert the memory card, Windows Vista’s AutoPlay feature will prompt you for the action to take. Select the Open folder to view files option.

If you don’t get the prompt, then just open Windows Explorer and you should see a new drive letter listed below your C: drive or D: drive.

Copy the pictures from their current location (from Step 1) and paste them into the memory card drive. You can do this by right-clicking on the folder containing your pictures, selecting Copy, and then right-clicking on the memory card drive and selecting Paste.

Step 3: Plug the memory card or flash drive into your picture frame

This last step is the easiest one because the picture frame will automatically search your memory card or flash drive for photos, and will automatically display them in a slide show on your picture frame.

You’ll find an SD Micro memory card slot on the side or back of your picture frame, and most frames also have a USB port for inserting a flash drive.

Your particular frame might have a variety of features and slide show settings, and many even allow you to play videos with audio or background music.

That’s all it takes to load pictures onto a digital picture frame for hours of viewing.

18 Comments

  1. digital picture frame
    My anut just died. I am trying to make my grandmother a photo album of her life. Is the only thing I can do is put pictures on the picture frame or is there a way to put a scrapbook or album on memory card to go into frame?

    • Ricky

      Sorry to hear about your
      Sorry to hear about your aunt!

      If you put photos on a memory card, then you’ll be able to plug that memory card into any photo frame and the frame will read the pictures. Meaning, you won’t actually put the pictures on the frame – just on the memory card, using the instructions above.

  2. Anonymous

    Pictures in order
    I scanned over 400 pictures for my Grandma’s 80th birthday party and we bought her a digital picture frame so she can view it all when she is in her room at the nursing home and I went through and re-numbered all the pictures so they would show in a specific order as the slideshow ran of each family and kid growing up, but once I got the pictures to the frame – they come up in random order even though I have the setting set to sequential?? I want them to be in order since I took the time to re-name and re-number over 400 pics. Can you help??

  3. Anonymous

    digital picture frame
    I put some pictures on my digital picture frame, but did not save them to my computer. Is there any way I can transfer them back to my computer or digital camera? When I try to go in and select the pictures and copy to a flash drive, the copy option is not available.

  4. Corky

    I have about 145 pics on a
    I have about 145 pics on a usb flash drive. My digital frame is not displaying all the pictures in the slide show. It runs about 30 then repeats the same ones. I have a Smartparts sp1000 and my Coby frame does the same. How can I get these frames to display all pictures and do them randomly? I have thousands of pictures and was hoping to get a 8gb usb drive to add alot more pictures to the frame. But it doesn’t seem worth the trouble if they won’t show up.

  5. Anonymous

    I was wondering if you knew
    I was wondering if you knew wether or not i could transfer images directly from a phones usb port to a digital picture frame ?

    • Gary

      I need to know this too my
      I need to know this too my frame has internal memory and i want the best pics on that incase my usb stops working (like the old one did) if you het the answer hit me up ๐Ÿ™‚

  6. Anonymous

    Digital Picture Frame
    I not sure why my digital picture from is unable to save the pictures without leaving the memory card in the frame.

    Can I down load the pictures and then remove the memory card ??

  7. Tina

    digital pics
    I have emailed a picture from my iPhone and copied it to a folder. I then transferred it to a flash drive and that is the only picture that will not show on my digital picture frame. Am I missing a step somewhere?

  8. Anonymous

    DIGITAL PHOTO FRAME
    I transferred photos to my digital frame, then accidentally wiped out the ones on my computer. I phoned the vendor (INSIGNIA) and asked how to copy them back to my computer, and was told to use a card reader. It was a help desk in India, so the girl only said “use a card reader” and didn’t talk me thru HOW to accomplish this. I have the card reader, but I’m lost. Help please.

    BT

    • Bob the Builder

      Sorry that i am late but what
      Sorry that i am late but what she means by card reader is that there is a removable card in the picture frame that has the images. I dont know if you have one or not. If you dont, then the pictures should be inside a chip inside the picture frame. So first of all, tell me if you put the pictures into a card that you put into the picture frame or if you connected the picture frame to your computer and copied the pictures that way.

  9. Anonymous

    memory card
    When I try to transfer more pictures to my memory card for my digital frame, it states that the memory card is formatted with the FAT file system and can only store a limited number of items.
    Store the items in a subfolder or reformat the drive using the NTFS file system. When I try this it says all items will be removed. The memory card is so not near its limit of capacity

    How do I add more pictures to this memory card?

  10. Anonymous

    photos to photo frame via usb cord?
    Is it possible to transfer photos from a pc to the photo frame using a usb cord instead of cards or sticks?

    • garry

      i would like to copy photos
      i would like to copy photos from computer to photo frame with usb lead

  11. Anonymous

    photos
    how do i transfer facebook format pictures onto a bush digital frame a when i tried they were not compatable

  12. hamza

    can i put foto frames for
    can i put foto frames for fotos in nokia E71 without using a computer?

  13. Sharon

    My new Bush Digital Frame
    My new Bush Digital Frame (DPF110) won’t show the pictures as a slide show. What to do??????? Thanks for whatever help you can offer.

  14. Karin

    I’m trying to save my photos
    I’m trying to save my photos to my digital frame but i have no way to copy them off my memory card. Is there a way to do it, so that the memory card doesn’t have to stay in the frame?

Comments are closed