The Free And Easy Way To Back Up Your iPhone Photos
Running out of space on your phone? There’s a hassle-free way to preserve precious photos before deleting them.
Rick Broida
Senior Editor
Rick Broida is the author of numerous books and thousands of reviews, features and blog posts. He writes CNET’s popular Cheapskate blog and co-hosts Protocol 1: A Travelers Podcast . He lives in Michigan, where he previously owned two escape rooms .
How many photos do you have in your phone? Hundreds? Thousands, even? I bet you’d hate to lose them. And yet phones get lost, stolen and broken every day. Are you playing it safe?
Apple’s iCloud affords a backup of sorts, but doesn’t really give you a way to access your photos via anything except other iDevices. What’s more, if you delete some photos from your iPhone in order to free up storage, those photos get deleted from your iCloud account as well.
Wait, so iCloud doesn’t technically back up your photo library? According to Apple’s overview page: “If you turn on iCloud Photo Library, your photos and videos are already stored in iCloud, so they aren’t included in your iCloud backup.” I’m pretty adept at all things iPhone, but the vagaries of iCloud? Umm…
Update:I goofed. Apple recently added Photo Library to iCloud.com, so you can indeed manage your photos that way. But your free storage is capped at 5GB, and I still find it unclear whether this is straight-up synchronization — meaning anything deleted from your device is deleted from iCloud as well — or a more traditional backup.
What Happened To The My Photo Stream Album
When you turn on iCloud Photos, photos from My Photo Stream that are in your My Photo Stream album but not saved to your library are removed. After you turn on iCloud Photos, you won’t see a separate My Photo Stream album.
If you have an additional device with My Photo Stream turned on and iCloud Photos turned off, you’ll still see a My Photo Stream album on that device. Any new photos that you take or add to your library show in that album on that device.
Section 3 Backup Photos From iPhone To Icloud Backup
iCloud would save most of the necessary data when you backup iPhone with iCloud. If iPhone says there is no enough iCloud storage, you should reduce the content by entering iCloud > Manage Storage > Backups > . You could if you just need the photos later. You should know that if you have already enabled iCloud photos in method 1, these photos would not be saved to this iCloud backup again.
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How To Back Up Your iPhone Photos To A Pc Using Windows Photos
You can also back up your iPhone photos to a computer running Windows 10 by using the default app Windows Photos. Using a USB cable, connect your iPhone to the computer and unlock your phone:
How To Save Messages Photos In Ios 15

With iOS 15, when an image is shown in your conversation, youll see that there is a download icon to its right which looks like a box with a downward facing arrow inside.
If you have been sent several images at once, which Messages now displays as a stack , you will the download icon beside them.
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How To Adjust Airdrop Settings
To choose who can see your device and send you content in AirDrop:
You can also set your AirDrop options in Control Center. Here’s how:
If you see Receiving Off and can’t tap to change it:
The Contacts Only option is available on devices that support iOS 10 and later, iPadOS, or macOS Sierra 10.12 and later. If AirDrop is set to Contacts Only on your device with an earlier software version, you’ll need to adjust AirDrop settings to the Everyone option in Settings or from Control Center. You can select the Everyone option while using AirDrop and disable it when not in use.
Download Photos To Pc From Google Photos Dropbox And Your Email
Similar to iCloud Photos, the automatic photo upload services like Google Photos, Dropbox, and Microsoft OneDrive diligently serve for an intermediary to move iPhone photos to a PC. It’s a simple matter of uploading picture files over to the online server, and downloading them to your computer’s hard drive as needed.
Keep in mind that each online service offers limited free storage for image backup. So if you have a strove of photos on iPhone to upload, make sure you have enough space.
Emailing photos to yourself is also a good option to export photos from an iPhone. You can send yourself an image to Windows PC via iPhone Mail app. Once the image is sent, open your email account on your computer and save it to desktop. Multiple pictures can be inserted in one email message for sharing.
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Transfer iPhone Photo To External Hard Drive Without Computer
Another question that we are continuously asked is how to transfer images from your iPhone to an external hard drive without the use of a computer.
The process is very easy, as you just need to have a portable external device like SanDisk that can be connected to your iPhone directly. This feature is available for all the devices with IOS 8 and above. To successfully transfer the data follow the step mentioned below:
- Use the lightning cable to connect the iPhone to an external hard drive.
- Check if the connection is established and open the photo app to select all the images that you want to transfer.
- Transfer these photos to the file app and select the hard drive that you want to save your photos to.
Even though there are many other ways to transfer data from your iPhone to an external hard drive, MobileTrans is the most preferred choice. This is one such software that streamlines the way we transfer data from iPhone to any other device. So, if you want to transfer data to an external device, use any of the above-mentioned methods.
How To Import Photos From iPhone To Pc In Windows 10
Below we’ll show you how to transfer selected photos from iPhone to PC, or all photos.
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How To Transfer Pictures From iPhone To Computer With A Cable
Some users encounter bugs with the built-in Windows Photos application. If you can’t get it to work and need another solution, try this.
Next, were going to delve into the two different ways to import pictures from iPhone to Mac with iCloud: Photo Stream and iCloud Photo Library. There are some important distinctions between the two that well go over my best recommendation is to enable both.
Save Photos From iPhone To Icloud Via Icloud Photo Library
If you choose to use the iCloud Photo Library, follow these simple steps to save photos and videos
Before you begin, ensure that your iPhone is running the latest version of iOS on your device and set up iCloud all devices.
- Step 1: On your iPhone, go to Settings > iCloud or for iOS 10.2 and earlier, go to Settings > iCloud > Photos.
- Step 2: Click on “Photos” and then turn on “iCloud Photo library”.
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Section 1 The Best Way To Backup iPhone Photos To Pc
The best way to backup iPhone photos is saving them to your computer. This would protect your privacy better than saving them to the cloud. AOMEI MBackupper could help you to quickly backup photos from iPhone to computer. It is a free professional iPhone backup software. You could easily backup photos as many as you want with it.
â Select Photos: In AOMEI MBackupper, you could preview every photo on iPhone 13/12 and filter the unneeded ones.â Fast Speed: AOMEI MBackupper is the fastest photo transfer when you backup and restore iPhone photos.â Backup to external drive: AOMEI MBackupper is capable of saving backup to external hard drive, USB drive, PC, and any place you like.â Incremental backup: This tool allows you to only backup added photos the next time you back up, so it can save space and time.â Widely Compatible: AOMEI MBackupper supports iOS 15/14, iPhone 13/12 Pro/12/11/XS, and other previous iOS and iOS devices.
Can I Transfer My iPhone Photos To A Pc

Yes. Using your charging cable, plug the USB into the computer to connect your phone. A pop-up should appear asking if youd like to download your photos onto your computer. Another pop-up will appear on your phone asking if you trust the computer tap Trust.
The download should start immediately and stop automatically when finished. You can also download iTunes onto your PC and create an entire backup of your phone, including the pictures and videos.
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Can’t Import Photos From iPhone To Windows 10
The Photos app in Windows 10 isn’t one of the most stable apps. If you have trouble importing photos – maybe the app is lagging while loading the pictures on your iPhone, or even worse, it crashes, do the following:
- On your iPhone’s Settings app, tap Camera > Formats.
- Tap on Most Compatible to save any captured photos at JPEG/H.264 for better compatibility in Windows 10 computer.
Follow These Simple Steps To Free Up Storage Space By Deleting All Photos On Your iPhonewithout Losing Them For Good
If youre like most people, your iPhone probably doubles as your one and only camera. Photos and videos are fairly large files, and in our snapshot-happy world, that can leave you feeling pinched for storage space. You can try all the iPhone hacks you want, but if you really want to free up space, you may want to learn how to delete all photos on your iPhone.
No, were not suggesting you give up your prized photos completely. The goal is to delete all photos from your iPhonenot from existence. So start by saving your favorite photos elsewhere . And dont worry, you can restore recently deleted photos if you trash them by accident.
Once youve saved the images youd like to keep, follow these steps to learn how to delete all photos on an iPhone. And if storage space isnt an issue but youd like to keep some images for your eyes only, learn how to hide private photos on your iPhone.
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Syncing iPhone With Itunes
If youre running out of space on your iPhone, start saving your photos to your computer. When you download photos from iPhone to your Mac or PC, youll be able to easily save and organize all your images. Or, if you prefer to not save to a hard drive, Shutterfly provides an photo app thatll automatically sync with your Photos app and upload your memories to an unlimited storage cloud service. You can then organize, tag and order prints from the tap of a button. You can even create and print photos and personalized products for your phone, our collection of custom iphone 7 plus cases and more leave the design options endless. Its time to put those organized photos to use!
How To Back Up iPhone Pictures To A Mac With Photos
One of the easiest ways to back up your iPhones pictures is with the Photos app on your Mac. After connecting your iPhone to a Mac using the Lightning-to-USB cable, follow these steps:
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Store Your Photos And Videos In Icloud
Your photos and videos are stored on your device in their original, high-resolution version. This means that they use a lot of space on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. With iCloud Photos, you can make more space available on your device and have your entire collection, everywhere you go.
Get started with iCloud Photos:
With Optimize Storage, smaller, space-saving photos and videos are kept on your device while all of your original, full-resolution versions are stored in iCloud. And as long as you have enough space in iCloud, you can store as many photos and videos as you want.
How To Transfer Photos From iPhone To Computer
The classic way to transfer photos from iPhone to Mac is to use the photo transfer feature in the Photos app that both Mac and PC offer. It’s important to note that the import Photos from iPhone to Mac process has changed a little since MacOS Catalina, Big Sur,and soon macOS Monterey, so if you’re using a newer operating system you’ll want to use the method shown next. If you use Mojave or earlier, you can skip to the next section.
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How To Save Pictures From Text Messages On Your iPhone Individually
1. Open your iPhone’s Messages app and find the picture you want to save.
2. Press and hold the image you want to save until an arrow appears above the picture.
3. Slide your finger up when you see the arrow and a menu featuring several options pop up.
4. Tap on “Save” and the photo will be added to your Camera Roll.
5. Alternatively, you can just tap the picture once until a square with an arrow shows up in the lower-left corner.
6. Tapping the arrow that appears will produce a menu bar of options on the bottom of your screen, allowing you to send your picture to contacts, email, social apps and more.
7. Select “Save Image” at the bottom.