How to Get Photos Off Your iPhone (or Any Smartphone)
The cameras in modern smartphones evolved beyond just shooting grainy caller ID mug shots a long time ago. In fact, many phones today have built-in sensors that not only rival that of standalone digital cameras—they've almost completely destroyed the market for cameras.
There's a good reason for that: Nary does a moment in life go by lately without a photo or video to match. In virtually all of those moments, our phones are there for us. Not only do they make it easy to take the shot, but smartphone apps for editing pics and footage are legion. You could practically replace your dedicated Photoshop desktop software or that Avid video-editing system at work. (Quick note: don't really get rid of those systems.)
But what do you do when you want to get that masterpiece of a shot off the small screen to do some serious work with that aforementioned Photoshop? How do you get the media easily from the phone to the computer?
It's simple as can be, if you know how. Here's a quick guide to help you get those precious memories off your phone and onto your hard drive. If you want to transfer wirelessly direct to a hard drive, skip directly to How to Wirelessly Transfer Photos From Your Phone to a PC. For other methods and work-arounds, read on.
Direct Connection
The fastest method for transferring a lot of pics is to attach your smartphone to your computer via the data cable. That's a Lightning connector for modern iPhones, or the mini-USB or USB-C for all others. Plug the other end into a USB port on the PC.
For iPhones, make sure in this instance that the iTunes software is not running on your desktop. When you plug in, something magical should happen: Your operating system should recognize the handset as a digital camera. More specifically, the computer will see that the phone has a DCIM, or Digital Camera Images folder. It's the default folder system all digital cameras use to organize pictures.
In Windows, for instance, it will show up as a new drive under the "This PC" section. Click on the drive, open the folder (mine was called "Internal Storage,") and you'll have access to all your images and videos. If it says the Folder is Empty, plug it in again with the iPhone unlocked; you may have to click a dialog box saying you trust the PC. I had to plug and re-plug an iPhone XS$999.99 at Verizon Wirelessseveral times before the DCIM finally showed up.
This method should work even if the software you'd typically use for syncing with a phone—such as iTunes for iPhones on a Windows PC—isn't running or even installed. Copy all the images to your hard drive (or move them if you need the space on the smartphone). The folders and names used by the phone likely won't make any sense; sort those all out later. Apple is killing iTunes later this year and replacing it with a combination of the Music, TV, and Podcasts apps, but that won't matter for users who bypass it altogether using this method.
Backup and Sync Services
Several of the major online backup services offer automated backup of photos and videos on your phone or tablet. For instance, you can go into Microsoft OneDrivesettings and turn on "Camera Backup" to monitor the photo gallery and auto-upload images and video to your OneDrive account, which you can then access on your PC.
Here more info on How to Manage, Sync, and Share Files on Microsoft OneDrive.
Likewise, there's an automatic photo upload for Dropbox that pulls images instantly and throws them up on your Dropbox in the Camera Uploads folder, which you can access on Dropbox.com or your hard drive once it syncs. You're limited to how much you can store online by your account; you may have to pay to get all the storage you need.
At the moment, Google Photos is the ultimate backup app for your photos. The free photos app can store an unlimited number of photos and videos if you let the service compress the files a little (if they're over 16 megapixels). You can also keep them at full quality within the 15GB of free storage you're allotted and upgrade with more paid storage as needed. The backed-up images are accessible via the web at photos.google.com, and can be downloaded to your PC as needed. Select a number of photos and use the overflow menu () to download a bunch in a batch. Here's how you organize pictures in Google Photos.
All of the above are available for iOS or Android.
Apple's iCloud, which is (shocker) iPhone-only, provides the iCloud Photo Library to store 5GB of photos and videos for free. Note that iCloud Photo Library is not the same as your Photo Stream.
When you need more storage, you have to pay: $0.99 per month for 50GB up to $9.99 per month for a 2 terabytes. iCloud makes your images and videos available across all your iOS and MacOS devices, as well as the Web. Here's How to Make Sure iCloud is Backing Up and Syncing Your Data.
Remember: with any of the above, you don't need the auto-update feature. You can also go into the app for each and directly upload photos, with the exception of iCloud (though you can upload images via iCloud.com). But really, if the space in your respective online backup service allows it, there's no reason you shouldn't be backing up all the photos taken on your smartphone instantly, so you never, ever lose a digital memory.
Removable Memory
Memory slots on a smartphone go in and out of style. That's mostly because they're very useful. When not available, customers complain so manufacturers bring them back. The cloud makes their absence less of an issue, but if you have a card slot, it's a fast way to get your pictures off a smartphone. You'll simply need a reader for your computer.
Memory cards are never an option on the iPhone, but there are a select few Android devices with microSD card slots. Examples include the Samsung Galaxy S10, the LG V40 ThinQ, and Moto G7. All feature a dual SIM/micro SD card slot. GottaBeMobile's video below spells out how to access it.
Even if you've got a card reader on your computer, you may need to purchase a microSD-to-SD card adapter so your computer can accommodate the minuscule microSD card. Once connected to your computer, the card functions like a simple flash drive; browse, drag, and drop your smartphone photos onto your PC and never lose a bit of image quality. You can buy USB-based adapters for SD/microSDfor next to nothing.
If you desperately want to use a SD or microSD card reader on your iPhone or iPad, there are several third-party readers with a Lightning plug you can get. They typically also have a USB 3.0 plug so you can easily connect the card reader to the PC for file transfers. Many can be found on Amazon from companies with suspicious sounding names, but at least one brand you've actually heard of (RavPower) has an option. It may require a special app to see the storage on the reader.
Ignore Apple's own $29 Lightning-to-SD Card Camera Reader. While it looks like it should be external storage, it's not. You can only use it for viewing pictures you have on an SD card on your iOS device. You can't copy from iOS to the SD card! Pathetic.
Bluetooth or Wi-Fi
The ability to directly share or transfer images and videos over a wireless connection is limited by the mobile operating systems, especially on iOS, but there are some exceptions.
The first is AirDrop, which allows instant connections to any other iOS or macOS device in the vicinity. It's powered by Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. You activate it with the Control Center. AirDrop will ask if you want to share with everyone in the area or just people on your contacts list. You can then share photos plus contacts and even content in the Safari browser.
Unfortunately, AirDrop doesn't help you get images to your Windows PC.
There are plenty of third-party software options to fix that problem, like Filedrop. It's $2.99 for iOS, but free for Android, Windows, and macOS. Filedrop promises to instantly pair with nearby devices and make sharing a breeze over the network. Similar programs include Wireless Transfer App ($2.99 on iOS, free for Android) and Instashare (shown below; it's free on iOS and Android, $4.99 for Mac, and $5.90 for Windows). Of the three, only Instashare has had an update in the last six months.
You may also want to try Snapdrop.net. Load the web page on any/all devices on the same network and if you load an image on one, it becomes available on all the browsers. I'll say "supposedly," as I wasn't able to get it to work on between an iPhone (with the Chrome browser, not Safari) and a Windows PC.
If local options don't work, turn back to the internet. A free app like Send Anywheresends your images andd videos, well, anywhere. This is somewhat secure—when you send files with Send Anywhere, you get a six-digit key the recipient must have on-hand to receive them. But so are Dropbox and OneDrive, and they'll handle a lot more than a few files at a time.
