You may have snapped thousands of photos on your Android phone over the years. Maybe you're preparing to wipe your old phone to trade it in for a new Samsung Galaxy or just want to look at your photos on a big screen instead of the little black slab in your hand. No problem. You can transfer your photos to your Windows computer in a few different ways.
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Each method works the same in Windows 10 and Windows 11. Let's go through each one.
The simplest way to transfer your photos is to copy them directly from your phone.
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Use USB for File transfer.
Screenshot by Lance Whitney/4. Next, open File Explorer on your Windows PC and navigate to your Android device.
5. Drill down through the Internal Storage or Internal Shared Storage folder to the DCIM subfolder and then open the Camera folder. You should see all of the phone's photos here.
6. 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.
Copy photos from phone to PC.
Screenshot by Lance Whitney/Also: How to transfer photos from your iPhone to your Windows PC
You can also import photos from your mobile phone using the Windows Photos app.
Import photos from phone to Windows Photos app.
Screenshot by Lance Whitney/2. Select your Android phone and allow the app to generate all the photos from the device.
3. Click the link forChange destinationto choose a different folder for importing the photos.
4. Click the drop-down menu forSelectand choose the option forAll items.
5. Check the box forDelete original items after importto remove the photos from your phone.
6. When ready, click theImportbutton.
Download photos to PC.
Screenshot by Lance Whitney/First, make sure that the photos on your phone are being backed up and synchronized to Google Photos.
Sync photos to Google Photos.
Screenshot by Lance Whitney/5. Browse and sign in to the Google Photos website on your computer. You should there see the photos synced from your Android phone.
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6. Now let's assume you want to download all the photos to your PC. Select the first photo, hold down the Shift key, and then select the last photo.
7. Click the three-dot icon in the upper right and select Download. Your photos are saved in your default Download folder as a ZIP file.
Download photos from Google Photos.
Screenshot by Lance Whitney/Here's a helpful option if you already use Microsoft OneDrive in Windows. Install the OneDrive app on your Android phone if you haven't already done so.
Set up OneDrive on Android phone.
Screenshot by Lance Whitney/5. After the photos have been synced, open the OneDrive folder on your computer and you should see all the photos.
View photos on PC.
Screenshot by Lance Whitney/Yet another option is to use Microsoft's Phone Link, which lets you view and retrieve photos and other items from an Android phone.
The downside with Phone Link is that there's no way to select and download multiple photos to your PC in one shot. So this tool is useful more for downloading just a few photos at a time.
Access photos in Phone Link app.
Screenshot by Lance Whitney/