Transfer photos from iPhone to PC with Windows 10

We have all become photographers. The evolution of the smartphone has allowed us to obtain excellent photos taken with the mobile device that we always have at hand or …. click. But managing a huge amount of photos is becoming a problem, because not a day passes that has no click. An effective solution is becoming the cloud, which allows you to store all the photos taken and have them always available when we want to look at them. Also because the price of cloud services is increasingly accessible and their widespread distribution. They are very convenient because they allow us to store our documents in an internet space, always accessible wherever we are. Among the most common uses of these services is certainly the rescue of photos taken with the smartphone,

For example, I use iCloud Photo Library to store all my photos taken with iPhone and those of my family. A large container used by the whole family with very low costs. Owners of Android smartphones, however, can rely on the excellent Google Photos (also available for iOS).

But who trusts to keep all his memories on a single storage tool? The good practice recommends that you have at least three different copies of your files stored on three different storage. If not three, at least two are indispensable in case one should crash. For this reason, in addition to cloud services, I prefer to have a local copy of all my photos. This means having to transfer photos from iPhone to PC every time. Doing this with a Mac is quite simple. If you have a PC with Windows 10, you need a few more steps, but it’s worth knowing how to secure our photos.

Transfer photos from iPhone to PC with Windows 10

In this guide I would like to show you how to transfer photos from iPhone to PC with Windows 10 without installing third-party software like iTunes. I will propose two different methods: the first one involves a manual procedure, the second one will take advantage of the Windows system applications.

How to pass photos from iPhone to PC manually

When you connect an iPhone to a PC, the phone is recognized as an external device. This feature allows you to browse the contents of the device. Specifically, all photos can be viewed as if they were on an external disk and this makes the transfer of photos very simple. If you do not know how to display an iPhone in computer resources, I suggest you read this guide.

Let’s go back to the guide and see how to pass photos from iPhone to PC.

  • Connect your iPhone to the Windows 10 PC with the Lightning cable. On the iPhone you will be asked to authorize the PC to import photos and videos. Authorize the operation and enter the unlock code.
  • On the PC open the window to navigate through the system folders. Access the route This PC. Among the available devices you should also view the iPhone. Double-click on the device to see its internal content.
  • Open the DCIM -> 100Apple folder to view all the photos, screenshots and videos that are stored on your iPhone.

At this point the game is done. You can select the photos you want to import to your computer and drag them to a destination folder on your computer, just as you would a pendrive or an external hard drive.

How to transfer photos from iPhone to PC automatically

If you do not want to manually import your photos from iPhone to PC, then use the operating system tools to do this automatically.

  • Connect the iPhone to the PC. If this is the first time this operation has been done, it authorizes the connection on your smartphone.
  • Launch the Photos application on Windows 10.
  • In the upper right corner, select the Import button.
  • In the window that will appear you will have the possibility to select a photo folder or a USB device. Select From a USB device that also contains your iPhone from which you want to import photos.
  • The Photo application will start searching for all images and videos that are stored on the device. At the end of the scan, in a window you will be presented all the files that can be imported.
  • Now you just have to select the images you want to transfer and then select the Import button selected.

Conclusions

In addition to the two methods listed above, you can still use iTunes on your Windows 10 PC to sync photos stored on your iPhone. This procedure is however more complex, as it provides for the installation of another application on the PC to manage the photos. Also you have to constantly keep a synchronized folder of the computer in which iTunes will import all the new photos.

I think that the solution that uses Windows Explorer to import photos is the best, as it allows you to perform the procedure on other people’s PCs, without the constraint of software installed on your PC. The use of the Photos application is instead recommended for those using their Windows 10 PC to manage a local copy of photos taken with iPhone.

In addition to transferring your photos to your PC, do you use a cloud service to store photos like Google Photos or iCloud Photo Library? If you read this guide, you will find several free cloud solutions to store all your photos.

  • 8 Best Cloud services with free online space to backup your data