Other Reset iOS photo numbering on iPhone camera roll

[golfnut1982]

Let's say you want to start fresh on a new iPhone, did you know that your camera roll will start at 0001? Some people may not care, but others would like to continue or even change it. I'm not sure how iCloud handles the potential duplicate names but it seems too. But here is how you can set the number to what you would like.
Here is how to do it. Get iMazing or PhoneView:

1. Power off the phone. Restart. Backup your photos.
2. Connect to USB and let it start (this way the camera app and others are not accessing the camera roll).
3. Launch iMazing go to Settings/Media/DCIM
4. Delete all pictures, files, folders from inside DCIM _(such as .MISC and 100APPLE, 101APPLE, etc... leaving just the DCIM folder empty).
5. Edit the PhotoData/MISC/DCIM_APPLE.plist file to set things to 0000 and 100 as desired in the xml file. Copy to Mac and modify two numbers. Text editor will do. Change the image number 0000 to say 7750 and folder number to 107. This last number here represents starting 7000th picture. Copy back and overwrite file on iPhone.
6. Restart iPhone. Disconnect the USB and power down the phone, never once tapping on any apps while you shuffled things under the OS and the Camera app.
7. Power on the phone and take a picture. Your folder will now be 107 and the image will be IMG_7750.jpg or heic
   DCIMLastDirectoryNumber 107 DCIMLastFileNumber 7750

Hope this helps.

 

[golfnut1982]

Still works on iOS 15

 

[square-mouse]

If you take a backup with the icloud photo turned off and restore a new phone from this backup, the new photos will continue to be numbered without resetting.
I also noticed that photos taken with the camera, saved from files or safari are numbered as well, but photos saved from mail are saved with the original name, but the numbering will still be counted.
I would like to be able to change the filename from photos app...

 

[square-mouse]

you can also make a screenshot and make as many duplicates as you want so that there is the last digit of the next photo and just delete the screenshots

 

[Rhotel41]

I would like to renumber new photos - the phone was my wife's and I store the photos we take on my laptop and I do not want a set of duplicate numbers from this date forward - I do not want to delete photos in either phone - just say from this date forth, the numbers will be starting with preferably R in one phone and L in the other then we would never be duplicating either prior photos or the new ones we are taking. The two phones are both iPhone SEs.

 

[golfnut1982]

Let us know what you find out. Sounds like a simple renaming task. https://www.imore.com/how-rename-multiple-files-once-mac

 

[Rhotel41]

Thanks, but that article pertains to a Mac, which I do not have and I want to do the renaming inside the iPhones so that I can meld the photos together in monthly files, not have separate file for each phone, which would be possible.

 

[shk]

Just tested this on iOS 17.5.1 and it still works. For me, only the "DCIMLastDirectoryNumber" value ended up mattering. No matter what I set "DCIMLastFileNumber" to, it took the folder number and started numbering from there. For example, I set the folder to "106" and the file to "3001" (just to test), but it ended up starting the numbers from 6001.

Also, it looks like OP copied the instructions from an Ask Different Stack Exchange question. These steps are from 2013 and someone posted updated instructions there in 2019 which I did not test but may work better. I'd also check there in the future in case someone else posts updates/improvements to this process.

How can I reset iPhone camera roll to IMG_0001.jpg?

I really want to reset the iPhone camera roll to photo IMG_0001.jpg. I have tried to do it with Image Capure, iExplorer and PhoneView, but any of them did not work at all. Is there a way to clear

apple.stackexchange.com

 

[winxmac]

The best way is to perform Erase All Content and Settings, provided that you have backed up everything and willing to start from scratch... I don't want to use another software just to reset the Photo and Video file numbering but you do you...

I upload photos and videos to OneDrive which gives them unique filename based on date and time and if I need to, I just download them back to the iPhone after the factory reset...