How to download photos from cellphone to PC

Fight daily with the little memory of your smartphone, and have you realized that occupy most of the space? I realize that having your taps always tap is very convenient, but it’s not as enjoyable as to sling space here and there to not touch them. No, quiet, I’m not suggesting you erase your precious photos: what you should do is transfer the photos, maybe on your computer, so you still have them available but free up a lot of space on your phone, apps, and games of interest to you.

You were thinking of such a solution as well, but being not a great tech expert, do you know how to download photos from cellphone to your PC? No problem, you’ve come to the right place at the right time: in the lines below, in fact, I’ll explain how to switch your photos from your smartphone to your computer using the most popular devices and operating systems: Android, iOS, Windows and MacOS.

I assure you that this is really a joke, then there are several ways to do so: you can connect the phone to your PC via USB cable, or if you prefer, you can use cloud services to download and sync your photos over the Internet. Do not worry, you do not need to be a technology genius to transfer pictures: take a few minutes, read more about what I’m doing and you’ll see that downloading photos from your smartphone will be easy!

How to Download Photos from Android

Do you own an Android phone? This is the guide that is for you: below I’ll explain how to download photos to your computer both with Windows and MacOS using the supplied cable; do not you have one available? You will learn to use the cloud and the Internet for image transfer without physically connecting two devices.

How to Transfer photos from Windows

The easiest way to download photos from Android to Windows is to use  File Explorer, that is, the file management program already included in your computer’s operating system. Fortunately, the latest Windows versions already have the drivers needed to properly recognize the smartphone, so you do not have to bother to download strange files to install with such patients.

Get the USB cable of your smartphone, with it connecting your smartphone to your computer; open the  File Explorer (the yellow folder icon in the bottom bar) and choose how to proceed: you can directly access your device’s memory and download the photos manually with the classic  copy and paste, or use a wizard for capturing images.

To download photos “by hand,” sign in to the Android notification area – scrolling your finger from the top of the screen), make a note about the USB optionsnotification,   and then put the checkbox in the File transfers box . Verify that the Debug USB item is not selected in Settings> Developer Options, otherwise uncheck (usually the Developer Options menu is not by default, so if you do not see it, do not worry: it is unlikely that the Debug USB item is unavailable ).

Then move to your PC and, in the File Explorer window, click on the icon of your smartphone in the left bar. Double-click the Internal Memory icon on your phone’s internal or external memory, and double-click the DCIM folder to download your photos from your smartphone.

To use File Explorer’s Image Acquisition wizard, recognize your phone as a camera, open Android notification, select Photo Transfer, right-click on smartphone icon, Import Images and Videos, add name, and click Import. If Windows 10 is available, download photos from cellphone to PC.

How to Download photos and Video from MacOS

To download photos from your Android phone to your Mac, you can rely on two different solutions: you can use Image Acquisition already on your operating system, or rely on the Android File Transfer application ; Both solutions are equally efficient: it is up to you to choose the one that you find most comfortable!

For the first solution, connect the smartphone to the Mac with the supplied USB cable, call up the Android notification area, tap the USB options entry and check the Photo Transfer (PTP) checkbox. move on the Mac, open LaunchPad, click on the Other folder,  and then click on the Image Acquisition icon.

To download photos from an image acquisition window, click on the desired photo, select multiple photos, and choose the desired folder. Click the Import button to download the selected photo or all photos, or drag them directly from the image acquisition window.

The Android File Transfer program is a MacOS-specific solution for accessing Android device memory. To use it, connect your phone to the Mac, set it to file transfer mode, download the app, and drag the icon to the MacOS Applications folder. Double-click the DCIM folder on your smartphone or Storage, sdcard0 folders, and select photos to transfer them.

Cloud Services

Another very efficient way to download photos from your cellphone to your PC when talking about Android is to take advantage of the cloud space offered by  Google Photos. : Downloading this app not only lets you send photos to the Cloud and get  free space , but you can easily access photos from both your PC browser and Google Drive apps, and download them from there. If you have not downloaded and configured the Google Photos app on Android yet, I recommend that you do so as soon as I follow my tutorial .

The fastest way to access your photos is to use your browser: Link to the Google Photos website , enter your credentials and click the Sign In button. ; click on a photo to start the selection mode, click on all the photos you want to download, then press the Menu button ⋮ located at the top right and select the Download item  (alternatively, press the Shift + D keys  simultaneously ); you just have to choose the folder where you download the photos and click the Save button  : the images will be enclosed in a .zip archive, which you can open with the most appropriate program .

To download photos from Google Photos, download the Google Backup & Sync program for Windows and MacOS, sign in, wait for files to sync, select folders, and upload to the cloud.

Finally, presses the buttons  Next ,  OK and  Start : after a few minutes, you can access your photos and all files stored on Google Drive by clicking on the  Google Drive in the sidebar  File Explorer (Windows) or  Finder (on MacOS).

iPhone

If your mobile phone is an iPhone , you can refer to this part of my guide: The following will illustrate the methods to download photos from your  iPhone by the computer, and Windows to Mac , using the supplied cable. The text provides a guide on how to use iCloud to download photos to your computer without having one available.

Windows

Despite Apple producing iPhones and Microsoft producing Windows, downloading pictures from mobile phones to computers is easy with a USB/lightning cable and a few minutes of free time. The basic thing to do is install iTunes: Apple’s home multimedia software, including Windows, also includes the drivers needed to recognize the iPhone (and iPad) from the PC.

To download iTunes, download it from a website and open the installation package. Click Next, remove the check mark, and set iTunes as the default player for audio files. Install, Yes, and End to finish the setup. Choose whether to share library data with Apple.

After installation is complete, connect the iPhone to the PC via the supplied USB / Lightning cable, unlock the phone screen, click on the Authorize button  , enter your iPhone security code and wait a few seconds for Windows to configure your phone. If you’re not interested in syncing with iTunes, you can close the program. Otherwise, follow the on-screen instructions to turn it on.

Using File Explorer to manually copy photos

Open the “Explore File” window and click on the yellow folder icon located in the bottom left bar of your PC. In the left bar, you’ll find on the iPhone icon. Now you can access the mobile phone’s memory simply by clicking on its icon: Double-click the  Internal Storage ,  DCIM and then 100Apple folders  and, with the classic  copy-paste , copy the photos you want to download.

Alternatively, you can use the Image Acquisition Wizard: In  File Explorer , right-click the icon on your iPhone, click  Import Imagery and Video , wait for the search to complete, then tap the check box  Import all new items now .

Now give a name to the collection, typing it in the appropriate box, and clicking the Import button. : The downloaded photos will be copied to the Windows image folder in a subdirectory containing the capture date and the name you are assigned to.

To import photos from iPhone to Windows 10, install iTunes, configure your iPhone, click on the Start menu, and select the Photo item. Click the Import button, select a USB device, and choose a custom folder for your photos. Wait a few seconds for the photos to be saved in the chosen folder.

how to effortlessly download photos from iPhone to Mac using built-in apps.

Want to download your photos from the cellphone to PC or iPhone to your Mac? Nothing simpler! As two Apple devices, you can proceed with the installed Photo and Image Acquisition applications on your Mac. It is up to you to choose the one that is most congenial to you.

To download photos from iPhone to Mac with Photos, connect the iPhone with the supplied cable and click on the Import All New Items button at the top right. After completing the procedure, you can find all the photos and videos in the Photos app, which saves everything within its library (a single file where all photos and videos in the application are stored). Drag the thumbnails of photographs from the photographs app to your preferred folder to export them.

To use, instead,  Image Acquisition , click on the LaunchPad icon, then on the Other folder  and click the Acquire Image icon. To start a program, select your iPhone name from the left sidebar, click on the photos to download, by using the cmd  button (to select multiple items at once), and choose the folder where you want to save the photos from the drop-down menu  Import In ; Finally, click  Import to download selected photos, or  Import All to download the entire iPhone gallery. You can download photos from Image Acquisition by selecting them with your mouse and dragging them to a desired folder.

If you have a Windows PC , you can use the official iCloud client and get an automatic iCloud Photo Streaming or Photo Streaming sync with your computer. To download the iCloud client on your PC, link to the Apple site and click on the Download button. Download icloudsetup.exe, accept license agreement, install, and finish. Wait for iCloud to open automatically, then restart PC if program doesn’t start.

To access your iPhone’s photos, log in to your iCloud client, enter your Apple ID credentials, and enable synchronization of the iCloud Photo Gallery or Photo Streaming. Wait for photos to download and open the iCloud Photos folder.

Using iCloud on a Mac is simple as it’s already included in the operating system. To configure an Apple ID, click the System Preferences icon, enter your account username and password, and click Sign In. To switch photos from iPhone to Mac, open the Photos app on your Mac and select the iCloud tab. Enable the iCloud Photo Library and/or Photo Streaming by checking the appropriate options. To access photos on iCloud from various devices, refer to the tutorial or read the guide for detailed instructions.