4 ways to transfer iPhone photos with your PC or Mac

An iPhone is not only a smartphone, but also a camera. But where are the iPhone photos once you’ve taken them? And what do you do when you need space for new shots? We give four practical tips.

Transfer iPhone Photos to your PC or Mac

Mac owners can easily import iPhone photos through the Photos app. Windows users must first unlock their iPhone or iPad with the passcode and make sure their PC trusts the iOS device. You can read more about this on the Apple Support website.

The easiest way to quickly exchange a photo is via the iCloud website. There you can easily pick a photo from your collection, as long as they are in your iCloud. Can’t do that? Then we’ll show you four additional ways to exchange iPhone photos with your Windows PC or Mac.

1. The Photos app from macOS

To import via the Photos app, connect your iPhone to your Mac or iMac with a USB cable. Open the Photos app and under ‘Devices’ choose the name of your iPhone. The app shows the photos that are on your device. In the app it says ‘import photos’ at the top right of the window. Clicking that will copy all the photos from your iPhone to the Mac. If you do not want to overload all images, you can first make a selection. After importing, you will be asked if you want to delete or keep the photos on your iPhone.

2. Transfer iPhone photos to Windows

If you want to copy photos to Windows 8 or 10, you can do so via Windows Explorer, among other things. You connect your iPhone to your computer with a USB cable. Via ‘My computer’, click on your iOS device and choose Internal StorageDCIM100APPLE.

You can then select (all) photos and transfer them to your computer. From the computer folder you can also delete photos that you no longer need. If your iPhone is not recognized, connect it to a different USB port or view this page for more information.

Another option is the Simple Transfer app. You can use this free app to send photos from your iPhone to a Windows PC quickly and easily. The free version only allows you to download a few photos. The paid version lets you transfer all your photos at lightning speed.

Do you have Windows 11? Then it is easier if you use iCloud. With the Photos app in Windows 11, you can link the Windows library directly to your iCloud photos. So you can easily view your iCloud photos on your Windows device! You can read more about this in the article below.

Read more: View iCloud photos more easily in Windows

3. Transfer photos from computer to iOS via Finder or iTunes

In addition to copying photos from your iPhone to the computer, you can also do it the other way around with the Finder from macOS Catalina. By connecting your iPhone to your computer with a cable and trusting it, you can see exactly which photos are on the device via the Photos tab and copy them to your Mac’s hard drive.

Do you have a Mac with macOS Mojave or earlier? Then you have to do this via iTunes. After connecting your iPhone via USB, click on your device in iTunes. In the top navigation bar, click on ‘Photos’. From there you can sync folders from your computer to your iPhone. The images will appear in your camera roll.

4. Use a cloud service

If you want to be able to transfer photos between iPhone and PC or Mac, you can use a cloud service. The most popular is Dropbox, a free app that offers 2GB of storage capacity, which can be expanded to 18GB. There is also a free program that you can use for PC or Mac. All you need is a Dropbox account (also free). You link both your iPhone and your computer to the account.

Any photo you then upload to Dropbox (you can do that automatically) will be available on any device you log in to. From there it’s easy to copy to your hard drive. Another alternative is Google Photos from Google, this iOS app works much the same as Apple’s Photos app but also automatically saves files to the cloud for easy access.

Apple’s iCloud is also a service that allows you to store photos and files in the cloud, among other things. That way your photos don’t take up space on your Mac and your photos are kept safe. You get 5GB of free cloud storage to use on your PC, Mac or iOS device. Want more storage space in iCloud? Read here which subscription is right for you.

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