iPhone Is Not Showing up on PC? Try These Solutions!

Why Your iPhone Is Not Showing up on PC?

When you only want to transfer your iPhone photos and videos to your computer, you can connect the iOS device to your PC, go to Windows File Explorer > Apple iPhone > Internal Storage > DCIM, and then copy & paste the needed items to your computer.

This is a simple way and you don’t need to use any third-party iPhone data transfer software. But, this way will be unavailable if your iPhone is not showing up on PC.

Why your computer is not recognizing your iPhone? These are the possible reasons:

• The USB cable is broken, but you don’t know. This is also the most common reason for iPhone not showing up in Windows Explorer.
• The iOS version you are running is out-dated or you are not using a genuine USB cable.
• If you haven’t trust the computer on your iPhone, the computer will not recognize your iPhone successfully.
• You are only allowed to transfer photos and videos from your iPhone Camera Roll to your Windows computer. If your iPhone Camera Roll is empty, your iPhone photos and videos on other folders will not be showing up on PC. That is, the DICM folder will be empty on Windows.
• If the USB port is not working or broken, your iPhone won’t connect to computer successfully.

Of course, there are also some other reasons that can cause the iPhone not showing up on PC issue. We will not list all of them here.

Now, the urgent thing is to fix this iPhone not showing up on PC/computer not recognizing iPhone issue and then you can transfer your iPhone files to PC smoothly.

We have searched for this issue on the internet and collect some solutions. We also try them one by one. In this post, we will show you some methods that are proved to be effective. If you don’t know the exact reason for the iPhone not showing up on PC issue, you can try these methods one by one until you find the suitable one.

Try These Simple Tips Beforehand

iPhone not showing up on PC can be an easy issue if the following tips work:

1. Make sure that your iPhone is turned on.
2. Make sure that there are photos and videos in the Camera Roll on your computer.
3. Reboot your iPhone and computer to get rid of some software issues on the devices.
4. Open and unlock your iPhone. Then, tap Trust this computer if there is such a message on the screen of the device.
5. Make sure that you are using an original Apple USB cable or try another genuine USB cable in case the USB cable you are using is broken.
6. To rule out the possibility of USB port not working, you can try other USB ports on your computer to see whether your iPhone is showing on your PC.
7. Connect your iPhone to another computer to see whether that machine can recognize your iPhone.
8. Go to check whether you are using the latest iOS version. If not, you need to go to Settings > General > Update Software on your iPhone and then follow the guide to upgrade your iOS to the latest version.

Perhaps, you are bothered by another similar issue: iTunes not recognizing your iPhone. If so, besides the above fixes, you can also update your iTunes to its latest version to see whether your iPhone is showing up in iTunes successfully.

But, if your iPhone is still not showing up on PC or iTunes is not detecting your iPhone after trying the above methods, you will need to take some other measures.

In the following contents, we will show you another 2 available solutions.

If your iPhone is not showing up on PC, don’t panic. There are some simple fixes that can be used to get rid of this issue.Click to Tweet

Solution 1: Update the iPhone Driver in Device Manager

An out-dated Apple iPhone driver can also cause the issue of iPhone not showing up on PC/ computer not recognizing iPhone. So, you can go to update the iPhone driver to try whether it can solve the issue.

You can follow these steps to do the job:

1. Press the Windows button and the X button at the same time to open the Quick Access

2. Select Device Manager from the popup menu.

3. Find the Portable Devices section and tap it to unfold the options.

4. Right-click on the Apple iPhone option and select Update driver from the popup list.

5. Select the Browse my computer for driver software option to continue.

6. Select the Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer option to continue.

7. Select the device driver you want to install for this hardware and click the Next button to continue.

8. Windows will begin to install the driver on your computer. When the process ends, you will see the following interface. Then, click the Close button to quit this window.

9. Close Device Manager.

10. Reboot your computer.

After these steps, you can re-connect your iPhone to your PC and then check whether your computer can recognize your iPhone successfully.

If your iPhone is not showing up in Windows Explorer, you need to try the next solution.

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If you want to recover deleted photos on iPhone in an easy way, you’d better try the professional iOS data recovery software - MiniTool Mobile Recovery for iOS.

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Solution 2: Troubleshoot Your iPhone in Control Panel

If the iPhone is not showing up on your PC issue is not caused by the iPhone driver, you can go to Control Panel to troubleshoot the device.

Here is a step-by-step guide:

1. Click Start on your computer.

2. Type control panel into the search box and press Enter.

3. Select Control Panel to open it.

4. Go to Hardware and Sound > View devices and printers.

5. Go to the Unspecified section.

6. Right-click on iPhone and select the Troubleshoot option from the context menu.

7. Windows will automatically detect the problems on the device. If there are issues on the device, you can follow the on-screen guide to fix them.

At last, you need to reboot your computer and iPhone to see whether the PC can recognize your iPhone and show it in Windows File Explorer successfully.

But, if this method doesn’t work or the Troubleshooter shows you a message like Troubleshooting couldn’t identify the problem, what can you do to transfer your iPhone files to your PC successfully?

You can use a third-party software to do the job alternatively. We will show you such a software in the next part.

You can update the iPhone driver or troubleshoot your iPhone to get rid of this iPhone not showing up on PC issue.Click to Tweet

An Alternative Software to Transfer iPhone Files to PC Free

Regarding transferring iPhone files to PC with a third-party software, you can consider using the safe and professional MiniTool Mobile Recovery for iOS.

The name of the software shows that it is an iPhone data recovery tool. But, we will tell you that it can also scan the existing files on the iOS device and help you save them on your computer. It does its job without influencing your computer and iPhone.

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The files you can transfer to your computer are not limited to the items in Camera Roll. You can also transfer other types of files like text messages, contacts, notes, and so forth.

The Recover from iOS Device module of this software can be used to directly scan and save your iPhone files to your computer. But, you need to install the latest iTunes version on your computer to make this module work normally.

With MiniTool Mobile Recovery for iOS Free Edition, you can only save some certain types of files to your computer without limits (you can see the detailed limitations in this list: Functional Limitations in MiniTool Mobile Recovery for iOS).

Now, you can press the following button to download and install this free software on your computer to have a try.

MiniTool iOS Recovery on WindowsClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

1. Connect your iPhone to the computer using the USB cable.

2. Open the software.

3. This software can automatically detect your iPhone and show it on the interface. Then, click the Scan button to start the scanning process.

4. It will take a while to finish the scanning process. When it ends, you will see that there is a data type list on the left side of the software interface. Then, you can select the data type you need to make its items to be displayed on the software.

For example, you want to transfer your photos to your computer. So, you can select Photos from the list and then the software will show you the items it detects in front of you. The names of the existing items are in black and the names of the deleted items are in orange. Please pay attention to these distinctions.

5. After selecting the items you need, press the Recover button to continue.

6. The software will assign a default path for you to save the select files. You can press the Recover button on the pop-out window to save these items directly. However, if you want to save them to another location, you can press Browse to select another path to save them.

Finally, your needed files are transferred to your computer and you can use them immediately.

MiniTool Mobile Recovery for iOS is an alternative tool that can transfer your iPhone files to your PC. Try it to transfer your files if your iPhone is not showing up in Windows Explorer.Click to Tweet

If you want to use this software to transfer your iPhone files including photos, videos, text messages, and more to your computer without limits, you can update it to a full edition. You can go to the MiniTool official store to get such an advanced edition.

After getting the license key of this software, you can just click on the Upgrade button (the arrow button that is on the top menu of the software) to register this software and then save all your needed files to your computer.

Bottom Line

We show you various methods to solve the issue of iPhone not showing up on PC/computer not recognizing iPhone in this post. We hope they can solve your problem really.

Should you have any problems when using our software or dealing with this issue, you can contact us via [email protected] or let us know in the comment. You can also share your opinions and suggestions with us here.