How to transfer photos from your Android device to your Windows PC

You may have taken thousands of photos on your Android phone over the years. And now you want to copy them to your computer for editing or just keeping them safe. No problem. You can achieve this in a number of ways.

• You can connect your device to your PC with a USB cable and access the photos from your phone.
• You can use the Windows Photos app to import the photos from your phone.
• By default, your photos are automatically saved to Google Photos, from where you can download them to your PC.
• When you tap OneDrive, you can automatically upload new photos from your phone to the OneDrive Pictures folder.
• And you can use Microsoft’s Phone Link app to transfer your photos.

Each method works the same in Windows 10 and Windows 11. Let’s go through them.

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Connect your phone to your PC

The easiest way to transfer your photos is to copy them directly from your phone. To do this, connect your phone to a USB port on your PC. On your phone, swipe down from the top of the screen until you see an option for your USB connection. It can tell you that it is charging your device via USB. Tap on this setting and change it to File Transfer.

Next, open File Explorer on your Windows PC and navigate to your Android device. Navigate through the Internal Storage or Internal Shared Storage folder to the DCIM subfolder, then open the Camera folder. You should see all the photos of the phone here. Open another window in File Explorer to a local folder on your PC. You can then copy and paste or drag and drop the photos from your phone to your computer.

Likewise: Here’s how to transfer photos from your iPhone to your Windows PC

Use the Windows Photos app

You can also import photos from your phone using the Windows Photos app. Open the app on your PC. Click the Import button and select the option for From a connected device.

Select your Android phone and allow the app to generate all photos from the device. Click the link for Change the target to choose a different folder to import the photos. Click on the drop down menu for Choose and select the option for All elements. Check the box for Delete original elements after import to remove the photos from your phone. When you’re done, click Import Button.

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Use Google Photos

First, make sure the photos are backed up on your phone and synced to Google Photos. Open the Photos app. Tap and select your profile icon photo settings. Choose Backup and sync and confirm that the switch for is on Backup and sync. Also, make sure you have enough space on your Google Cloud storage to hold all your photos. You can also change the upload size to upload your photos in a compressed format to save space.

Navigate to the Google Photos website on your computer and sign in. You should see the photos synced from your Android phone there. Now let’s say you want to download all the photos to your PC. Select the first photo, hold down Shift, and then select the last photo. Click the three dots icon in the top right and select Download. Your photos will be saved in your default download folder as a ZIP file.

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Use Microsoft OneDrive

Here’s a helpful option if you’re already using Microsoft OneDrive in Windows. Install the OneDrive app on your Android phone if you haven’t already. Open the app and sign in with your Microsoft account. Tap the Photos icon at the bottom. Tap the option for Camera Upload and tap the turn on Button. Then flip the switch Camera Upload.

After the photos are synced, open the OneDrive folder on your computer and you should see all the photos.

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Use Microsoft’s phone link

Another option is to use Microsoft Phone Link, which allows you to view and retrieve photos and other items from an Android phone. Your first step is to link and sync your Android phone with Windows. After your phone is connected, select the Photos option in the Phone Link app on your Windows PC. You will then see all the photos from your phone. Right click on a photo you want to download and select it Save as. The downside of Phone Link is that there is no way to select multiple photos at once and download them to your PC. So, this tool is rather useful for downloading few photos at a time.