On both Windows and macOS, you may have to put your phone in file transfer mode once it’s connected: To do this, open up Settings on your Android device, then pick Connected devices, USB, and File transfer.
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You can use apps such as Dropbox to wirelessly beam photos and videos from an Android phone to a computer, but again, you’ll have to pay for cloud storage space once you hit the free limit—which is 2GB for Dropbox.
How to transfer photos from Android to Windows
Connect your Android phone to your Windows 10 or 11 computer with the appropriate USB cable, and your phone should show up in File Explorer (and start charging at the same time). If your phone isn’t appearing in the left-hand navigation pane in File Explorer, click This PC to see a list of drives and devices, and you should be able to find it there.
You can then browse your Android smartphone just as you would any other folder on your Windows system. The photos and videos are typically stored in a folder called DCIM, so you can move them to your computer however you like: drag and drop, Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V, or the copy (two rectangles) and paste (a clipboard and a rectangle) icons in the File Explorer toolbar at the top.
You can also right-click on the name of your phone in File Explorer, then choose Show more options and Import pictures and videos to move files across. You can pick and choose which photos and videos to copy, or you can just grab everything. By default, the files go to the Pictures folder in your Windows user account, but it’s possible to change this by selecting More options.
We’d recommend keeping your photos and videos backed up in a third location (besides your phone and computer) on an external drive, just in case. There are plenty of third-party applications to pick from, but Windows also has the built-in File History backup tool—you can search for it and launch it from the Start menu.
How to transfer photos from Android to macOS
To get Android and macOS talking to each other, you’ll need a small, free software tool from Google called Android File Transfer. After downloading the package, drag the Android File Transfer app icon to the Applications folder, and you’ll be able to launch it from the Applications screen in Finder or through Spotlight (Cmd+Space).
As it’s a new program freshly downloaded from the internet, you’ll get a pop-up dialog asking you to confirm that you want to run it. Once you do, connect your Android phone to your Mac computer with the appropriate USB cable. You should then see a pop-up window asking if you want to allow the “accessory” (your phone) to connect to macOS, so choose Allow to continue.
Now, you’ll be able to move all your media files off your phone and onto your Mac. As always, we recommend you back up your photos (and other data) in a third location like an external hard drive, for added safety. It’d be tragic to transfer everything just to lose it from a hard drive crash.