4 Easy Ways to Transfer Photos from Computer to iPhone 12/11/X/7/6
Last Updated on February 26, 2021 by Jack Robertson
For iPhone users, it’s tricky to view and edit your computer photos on your iPhone since an iPhone is less compatible than an Android phone that you cannot copy and paste the pictures from your computer to your iPhone as you do on an Android phone.
Sometimes, the confusion of ‘How do I move my photos from a computer to my iPhone‘ may strike you when you finish editing some pictures, uploading some photos from a camera, or downloading some interesting image files online. Actually, it’s just a piece of cake to transfer the photos from a computer to your iPhone. You can easily finish the task with some iPhone transfer tools like iTunes, iCloud, Google Photos, and iPhone Transfer.
In today’s tutorial, I’ll teach you how to use the above 4 software to transfer your computer pictures to an iPhone with less effort and maximized benefits.
Method 1 Transfer photos from PC to iPhone using iPhone Transfer
Been searching for an easy and fast way to transfer your images from a computer to your iPhone? Try echoshare iPhone Transfer.
As a professional iPhone management tool, echoshare iPhone Transfer can help you transfer tons of files between your iOS devices and a computer.
Case in point:
- Multimedia connection: You’re available to transfer data from a computer to your iPhone, iPad, or iPhone, and vice versa.
- Multidata compatibility: The program supports dozens of file types, like Videos, Photos, Audio, Contacts, Messages, Apps & App Attachments, etc.
- High-speed transfer: Once you start to transfer files, echoshare will finish the process within seconds.
- Ultimate security: Unlike iTunes, this iPhone Transfer will never overwrite the data on your iPhone and cause data loss.
More features are waiting for you to explore and now, let’s use this tool to transfer your photos from a PC to an iPhone.
Step 1 Download iPhone Transfer on your computer for free
Free Download Here:
Step 2 Connect your iPhone to iPhone Transfer
After installation, launch the program. Take out a suitable USB cable and plug your iPhone into the computer via that cable.
Then, unlock your iPhone and tap Trust on the screen to allow the computer to access your iPhone. Now, iPhone Transfer will recognize your iPhone and sync to it quickly.
Step 3 Start the photo transfer
On the echoshare’s interface, hit the Photos icon.
iPhone Transfer will display all the iPhone photos and albums on the right panel. We can start to transfer photos from your computer hard drive to the iPhone right away.
Click on Import, choose to import files or a folder, browse and select the target image files or folder, click Open to confirm.
Tip: You’re available to copy your photos into a certain album.
First, check out the Albums option on the left menu and click it. Then, look at the right panel and double-click on the album you want to import photos to. Click Import and select the photos.
Step 4 Complete the transfer
Then, iPhone Transfer will prompt you to download an app on your iPhone to have a more stable and safer transfer. Take out your iPhone, turn on the camera and scan the QR code on the window to get the app on your iPhone.
When the download is complete, open the app on your iPhone and tap ‘Allow‘ to approve the app to add photos from the computer to your iPhone.
Finally, click the Installed button on the desktop version and iPhone Transfer will work to transfer the photos from the PC to your iPhone.
Don’t want to download the app? Sure, no problem.
Hit the Fast Import Photos without App option and click Yes to start.
Then, iPhone Transfer will transfer the photos from your computer to the iPhone without using the iOS app.
Tip
echshare iPhone Transfer can help you transfer more files between your iPhone and computer. To find out more, read these:
Method 2 How to transfer photos from PC to iPhone using iTunes
When it comes to the issue of transferring media files from a computer to an iPhone, iTunes always inevitably appears in everyone’s mind.
As the basic and recommended official iOS data management software, iTunes helps us back up, restore, enrich and upgrade our iOS devices. Also, we can use it to transfer data from a computer to an iPhone.
However, due to iTunes’s specialty, there are chances that you will suffer from data loss when transferring PC photos to your iPhone. If you’re using a new phone or there’s nothing important on your photo gallery, iTunes is still a pretty good tool.
Let’s see how to use iTunes to transfer photos from your PC to an iPhone.
Step 1 Sync iPhone to iTunes
Download and install the latest iTunes on your Windows PC. Then, plug your iPhone into the PC and iTunes will sync to your iPhone automatically.
Step 2 Prepare to transfer photos
Hit the thumbnail iPhone icon to enter the data transfer interface. Then, locate Photos under Settings.
Tick the Sync Photos option to allow iTunes to add PC photos to your iPhone.
Caution
iTunes will warn you that this action will remove the current existing music, movie, book, TV show items from your iPhone and replace them with those on iTunes libraries. Once the files on your iPhone are removed, there’s no chance to retrieve them.
If you’re OK with that, hit Remove and Sync to proceed. Otherwise, click Cancel and try another method.
Next, click the selection box next to Copy photos from: and click on Choose folder. Then, browse and select the folder that saves the target photos. Hit Select Folder to import this folder to iTunes.
Note
With iTunes, you can only choose to import a whole folder, not files only. So, you’d better move all the target photos into one folder first.
Also, when this selected folder has some sub-folders, you’re available to decide which folder(s) you really want by tick the Selected folders option and checking the target one(s).
By the way, if there’s any video in this folder that you want to transfer to your iPhone, tick the Include videos option. In this case, iTunes will transfer all the videos and photos from this PC folder to your iPhone.
Step 3 Transfer photos to your iPhone
Now, all the information is clear and we can finish the transfer with iTunes then. Locate the bottom-right corner of the interface and hit Apply.
iTunes will start to sync this picture folder to your iPhone. You will see a progress bar at the top of the interface. When Syncing “xx’s iPhone” (Step 5 of 5) sign disappears, the process is complete. You can unplug your iPhone from the PC and check the pictures on the Photos app.
Method 3 Transfer photos from PC to iPhone with iCloud
Happen to find no USB cable nearby? Try iCloud, the official cloud service of Apple, to transfer your PC photos to an iPhone.
You can choose to download the iCloud application on your computer to carry on the transfer. But since we’re talking about simplicity here, let’s skip the app and use the web version.
Tip: Why shouldn’t try the iCloud app to transfer photos?
Apple offers users access to iCloud via iCloud.com and the iCloud app. We’ve found that the web version provides almost the same features and functions as the desktop version. But the app comes with so many cons that the web version doesn’t. For instance:
- Auto-launch disturbance: The iCloud app will launch on your PC when you power on the PC. Worse still, the auto-launch cannot be disabled.
- Storage panic: Once you sign in to the app, it will sync all the data and files from the cloud storage to your PC hard drive, giving extra burden to the machine.
- Privacy leak: Others can visit the iCloud Photos on your PC without entering any passcode.
I guess we’d better log in to iCloud.com and transfer photos from your PC to the iPhone through the page.
Step 1 Sign in to iCloud.com
Visit iCloud.com on your PC and sign in with your Apple account.
Note: Approve signing into iCloud.com
After you enter the Apple ID and password, iCloud will ask you to enter a 6-digit verification code on its page, have no idea how to get it? Follow these:
- Unlock your iPhone and tap Allow on the screen.
- The verification code appears.
- Enter the code on iCloud.com.
- Click Trust when a Trust This Browser box appears.
In this way, you’ve finished the login. Also, the next time you sign in to iCloud.com, you won’t see that request of entering verification code and go through the above steps again.
Step 2 Upload photos from PC to iCloud
After signing in, hit the Photos icon in the middle of the webpage to proceed.
Next, locate the Upload photos option (
) at the top-right corner of the page and click it.
Choose the target photo(s) from your computer hard drive and hit Open.
iCloud will start to analyze the image files and upload them to the cloud storage.
Step 3 Turn on iCloud Photos on your iPhone
Unlock your iPhone and go to Settings > Apple ID > iCloud > Photos. Make sure the iCloud Photos option is on. Then, iCloud will sync those photos to your iPhone. Go to Photos and check out the computer photos there.
Method 4 Transfer Pictures from PC to iPhone with Google Photos
Besides iCloud, we can find multiple cloud services online to help us transfer photos from a PC to an iPhone, like Dropbox, One Drive, and Google Photos.
And among all those cloud services, Google Photos by Microsoft is one hell of a convenient tool for us since almost every one of us has a Google account to use the Google Photos service.
If you have a Dropbox or One Drive account already, you can use them as well.
Try this out:
- On your PC, go to Google Photos and drag your photos into the page to upload them to the cloud;
- Download Google Photos on your iPhone via App Store.
- Run the app on your iPhone and sign in with your Google account;
- Long press to select the photo(s) to transfer and click Share. Choose Save to Device to download the PC photos(s) to this iOS handset.
Wait for the completion and go to Photos to check out the pictures later.
FAQ1. How do I get my computer to recognize my iPhone?
To make your computer recognize your iPhone is pretty easy.
- Take out a compatible USB cable and insert your iPhone into the computer.
- Then, unlock your iPhone and tap the ‘Trust’ button on the screen.
If you’ve installed iTunes on your PC, it will launch automatically when your computer recognizes your iPhone.
FAQ2. Why can’t I copy photos from computer to iPhone?
If you fail to copy photos from a computer to your iPhone, try these methods to fix it:
- Switch to another USB cable.
- Try to plug the USB cable into another USB port on your PC.
- Upgrade iTunes to the latest version.
- Unlock your iPhone and go to Settings > General > Reset > Reset Locate & Privacy. Then, reconnect your iPhone to the PC.
- Get your PC to recognize the iPhone properly.
If these methods still couldn’t retrieve the photo transferability of your PC and iPhone, try using iCloud and Google Photos.