For most people, the best, if not the only, camera they own is the one on their phone. So when it comes time to upgrade — whether you’re going from an Android to an iPhone or vice versa — some of the most important things you’ll want to transfer are your pictures. If you keep reading, you’ll learn how to transfer pictures from Android to iPhone or from iPhone to Android.
If you’re transferring pictures from your iPhone to an Android, the process is relatively straightforward. Again, if you only want to move a couple of pictures, then email or text may be the way to go. But if you want to transfer an album or two, or even your entire library, you’ll want to keep reading for instructions.
The saying is true: “Garbage in, garbage out.” And that’s especially true when it comes to the data on your phone. So before you just dump your entire photo library onto your new device, quickly clean it up using the app named CleanMy®Phone. Download CleanMy®Phone from the App Store and follow these steps to start cleaning your photo library:
Transferring a few pictures from your iPhone to Android is pretty simple. The only catch is that you’ll need to use an app called Send Anywhere. You can use it to wirelessly transfer your pictures as long as you have both phones in the same room.
AirDrop is a feature made by Apple solely for their devices. That means it isn’t possible to simply AirDrop pictures and videos to an Android phone. But there are other apps and websites, like Snapdrop, that offer similar functionality.
Similarly to transferring your entire library from an Android to an iPhone, you can transfer your whole library from iPhone to Android — all without plugging into a computer — thanks to Google Photos or other cloud-based photo-sharing apps. To transfer your entire photo library:
Transferring your photos from Android to iPhone doesn’t have to be a long and tedious process; it all depends on how many pictures you want to copy over. Of course, if you only want to transfer a handful of photos, you can always email or text them to yourself, but we wouldn’t recommend doing this for more than about ten pictures. To transfer more photos than that, you’ll need to use a computer or a cloud service as the go-between for both phones.
If you don’t want to transfer your entire photo library from an Android to your iPhone, you can use the app Send Anywhere to quickly transfer select pictures. If two phones are in the same room, you can use the app to move the photos wirelessly from one phone to the other.
Once you have Send Anywhere downloaded from the Google Play Store and the App Store, you can start transferring your pics:
When you get to Step 3, you also have the option to send your pictures using a link if your phones aren’t close to each other or the wireless transfer isn’t working for some reason.
Manually selecting each photo won’t really work if you’re upgrading from an Android to an iPhone and want your entire photo library to come over with you. Thankfully, if you were using a cloud service like Google Photos to back up your photo library, it’s easy to transfer to your new iPhone.
Even if you weren’t already using Google Photos, you can still download it to your Android from the Google Play Store and quickly set it up to start transferring all of your photos. To transfer your photo library using Google Photos:
Something to keep in mind during Steps 4 and 10 is that Google offers free unlimited storage using the High-quality setting, which compresses pictures to save them. However, if you choose Original for those steps, photos will be saved at full quality and will count toward your Google One storage limit.
When you’re setting up your new iPhone, it’s a good time to start fresh, especially when it comes to your photo library. It’s surprising how quickly your library can fill up with duplicate photos, similar-looking images, or even unnecessary screenshots.
Thankfully, CleanMy®Phone, the app we’ve mentioned earlier in this article, can help you clean up your library, so you’re not wasting any storage space on your new iPhone. Run a quick scan and free up space for things that matter.
CleanMy®Phone only scans pictures saved in iCloud or stored on your phone, so if you have pictures and videos in Google Photos, you’ll have to download them to your phone before you can clean up your library and reduce the clutter.
Whether you’re going from Android to iPhone or iPhone to Android, there are a couple of ways you can get your pictures onto your new device. Whichever method you choose, it’s important to have a bit of patience. It can take some extra time to transfer everything, depending on how much you’re trying to move at one time.