How to Move Photos from iPhone to Android

Switching Phones Should Not Mean Losing Your Photos

Moving from an iPhone to an Android phone is exciting — new hardware, new features, a fresh start — until you realize that years of photos are sitting in the old phone and need to get to the new one. The good news is that moving photos from iPhone to Android is much easier than it used to be, and you have several good methods to choose from. The bad news is that no single method is perfect: each one has a trade-off, usually around Live Photos, album organization, or speed.

In this guide, you will learn five reliable ways to move your photos: Google Photos, a direct cable transfer, a computer in the middle, a file-sharing app, and a cloud service. You will also learn what happens to Live Photos, albums, and photo quality with each method, so you can pick the one that fits your photo library instead of discovering the trade-offs afterwards.

Before You Start: A Few Preparations

Whichever method you choose, a little preparation saves trouble later.

1. Charge both phones and keep them plugged in during the transfer. A transfer of thousands of photos takes a while, and a phone dying halfway through is the most common cause of a failed move.
2. Connect to Wi-Fi if you are using any wireless or cloud method. Moving a large photo library over mobile data is slow and can eat through a data allowance.
3. Check your Android phone’s free space. Go to Settings, then Storage, and make sure there is room for your photo library. If space is tight, move only your favourites now and the rest later, or use a cloud method that does not require storing everything on the new phone at once.
4. Decide what matters most: keeping every photo at full quality, keeping your albums, or keeping Live Photo motion. No method preserves all three perfectly, so knowing your priority makes the choice easy.

Method 1: Google Photos (The Easiest for Most People)

If your photos are already backed up to Google Photos on your iPhone, or you are willing to back them up first, this is the simplest method of all — because there is almost nothing to transfer.

1. On your iPhone, install Google Photos from the App Store if it is not already there, and sign in with your Google account.
2. Open Google Photos, go to Settings, and turn on Backup. Wait for the backup to complete — this can take hours for a large library, so do it overnight on Wi-Fi.
3. On your Android phone, sign in to the same Google account and open Google Photos.
4. Your photos appear, ready to view, and you can turn on backup on the Android phone as well to keep them safe going forward.

The catch is quality settings. Google Photos backup can be set to “Original quality” or a storage-saving quality that compresses photos slightly. If you want every pixel preserved, choose original quality before backing up, and make sure your Google account has enough storage space for your library. If storage is tight, the storage-saving option is a reasonable compromise for most everyday photos, but it is a real quality trade-off, so choose deliberately.

Album organization is also imperfect with this method. Albums you created in Apple Photos do not transfer as albums into Google Photos automatically; your photos arrive as one big library sorted by date. You can recreate albums in Google Photos afterwards, but it is manual work. Live Photos transfer as still photos in most cases — the motion part does not survive the move to Google Photos on Android.

Method 2: Cable Transfer During Android Setup (The Most Complete)

When you first set up a new Android phone, it offers to copy data from your old phone, and this is the best moment to move photos, because the transfer is direct and thorough.

1. On your new Android phone, start the setup process and choose to copy data from your old phone when asked.
2. Connect the two phones with a cable. You may need a USB-C to Lightning adapter or a USB-C to USB-C cable depending on your iPhone model — many new Android phones include the right cable or adapter in the box.
3. Follow the prompts on both phones, and when asked what to copy, make sure Photos is selected.
4. Keep the phones connected and nearby until the transfer finishes. Do not interrupt it.

This method moves your photos at full quality, directly from phone to phone, without any cloud storage limits. It is the best choice if your library is large and you want original quality without paying for cloud storage. Its limits: it works best during initial setup — doing it later is possible through the phone manufacturer’s transfer app, but it is less smooth — and Live Photos generally arrive as still images, with the video portion left behind. Albums from Apple Photos may also arrive flattened into a date-sorted library, depending on your Android phone’s gallery app.

Method 3: Via a Computer (The Most Control)

If you like to see exactly what is moving, and you want a backup copy on your computer as a bonus, the computer method gives you the most control.

1. Connect your iPhone to your computer with its cable. On the iPhone, tap “Trust” if asked whether to trust the computer.
2. On a Windows computer, open File Explorer and find your iPhone under devices; on a Mac, open the Photos app or Finder, depending on your setup.
3. Copy the photos you want from the iPhone to a folder on your computer. This is your backup copy — keep it even after the transfer.
4. Connect your Android phone to the computer with its cable. On the Android phone, tap the USB notification and choose “File transfer”.
5. Copy the photo folder from your computer into the Android phone’s Pictures folder, or into the DCIM folder if you want them to appear in the camera gallery.

The advantage here is total control: you choose exactly which photos move, you end up with a computer backup, and quality is untouched because the files are copied directly. The disadvantage is speed and effort — it is the most hands-on method, and very large libraries take a long time to copy twice. Live Photos, again, transfer as still images unless you also copy their companion video files and your Android gallery app knows how to pair them, which most do not.

Method 4: A File-Sharing App (The Quick Wireless Option)

For a smaller batch of photos — say, your favourites rather than your whole library — a file-sharing app is fast and needs no cable or cloud account.

1. Install the same file-sharing app on both phones. Popular options include Google’s Quick Share (on Android, with an iOS companion approach), Send Anywhere, or SHAREit.
2. On the iPhone, select the photos you want to send in the app.
3. On the Android phone, accept the incoming transfer in the same app.
4. Wait for the transfer to finish over the local Wi-Fi connection between the phones.

This method is quick for a few hundred photos and keeps full quality, since files move directly between the phones. It is less practical for a library of thousands of photos, where a cable or cloud transfer is more reliable, and it does not preserve albums or Live Photo motion either. It is best thought of as a top-up method: move the bulk of your library by cable or cloud, then use a sharing app for the stragglers.

Method 5: Another Cloud Service (If You Already Use One)

If you already use Dropbox, OneDrive, or a similar service, you may not need Google Photos at all.

1. On your iPhone, install the cloud service’s app and turn on camera upload, or manually upload the photos you want to move.
2. Wait for the upload to finish on Wi-Fi.
3. On your Android phone, install the same app, sign in, and download the photos — or simply leave them in the cloud and view them from the app, which saves space on the new phone.

This method suits people who already pay for a cloud service and already have their photos there. The trade-offs are the same as Google Photos: quality depends on the service’s settings, albums do not transfer automatically, and Live Photos become stills. The advantage is that you are not adding yet another service to your life.

What Happens to Live Photos, Albums, and Quality?

This is the part most guides skip, and it is the part that causes the most disappointment after a move. Here it is plainly.

• Live Photos: a Live Photo is really a still photo plus a short video clip. In almost every transfer method, only the still photo survives. If Live Photos matter to you, the best workaround is to convert the ones you care about most into short videos before moving, using the iPhone’s Photos app or a converter app, and transfer those videos separately.
• Albums: albums are organization, not part of the photo files themselves, so they do not transfer with the photos in any method. Expect to recreate your most important albums on the Android phone afterwards. Some gallery apps let you create albums quickly from a date range or a selection, which speeds this up.
• Quality: cable and computer transfers preserve original quality exactly. Cloud transfers preserve it only if the service is set to original quality and you have enough storage. File-sharing apps preserve it because files move directly. If quality matters, prefer cable, computer, or direct sharing over a storage-saving cloud setting.
• Duplicates: if you try two methods, you may end up with duplicates on the Android phone. Check for duplicates after the transfer, and use your gallery app’s duplicate-finding feature if it has one, before deleting anything by hand.

After the Move: A Quick Checklist

1. Open the gallery on your Android phone and scroll through a few dates to confirm photos arrived and look right.
2. Check that the photo count roughly matches your iPhone’s count, allowing for duplicates or a few Live Photo video parts that did not transfer.
3. Turn on backup on your Android phone (Google Photos or your chosen service) so your library is protected from now on.
4. Recreate your most important albums.
5. Only when you are sure everything arrived, consider freeing space on the old iPhone or passing it on — and factory reset it before giving it to anyone else.

Tips for a Smooth Move

• Move at night: start a cloud backup or a large cable transfer in the evening and let it run overnight, plugged in, on Wi-Fi.
• Move in batches if the library is huge: transfer a year at a time, or favourites first, and confirm each batch before starting the next.
• Keep the old phone until you are sure: do not wipe or sell the iPhone until you have checked the Android phone’s gallery and confirmed the photos you care about are there.
• Check storage first: a transfer that runs out of space halfway through is frustrating and can leave partial results. Free up space or use a cloud method that does not need all photos stored locally.
• Convert precious Live Photos first: for the handful of Live Photos that really matter — a child’s first steps, a wedding moment — convert them to video before moving, so the motion survives.

Troubleshooting

The transfer stopped halfway

Check that both phones stayed charged, connected, and on Wi-Fi. Most transfer methods can be resumed, or you can simply run them again — duplicates are easier to clean up than missing photos, so a second pass is safe.

Photos arrived but look lower quality

You probably used a cloud service set to storage-saving quality. Re-upload the affected photos at original quality, or use a cable transfer for the originals, and replace the compressed copies.

Some photos are missing entirely

Check whether they were in a shared album, a hidden album, or an app-specific folder on the iPhone rather than the main camera roll — those are easy to miss in a bulk transfer. Also check the “Recently Deleted” folder on the iPhone: photos deleted there within the last month may not transfer.

Albums did not transfer

This is expected, not an error. Albums do not travel with photo files in any transfer method. Recreate them on the Android phone from the transferred photos.

Live Photos lost their motion

Also expected with every standard method. Convert important Live Photos to video on the iPhone before transferring, or keep the original Live Photos on the iPhone or in iCloud as an archive even after you move.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I move photos without a Google account?

Yes. The cable transfer and computer methods need no Google account at all, and file-sharing apps work without one too. Google Photos is only one option, not a requirement.

Will moving photos delete them from my iPhone?

No. Every method in this guide copies photos; none of them deletes the originals. Your iPhone keeps its photos until you deliberately delete them or reset the phone.

How long does a full library transfer take?

It depends on the size of the library and the method. A few hundred photos take minutes by cable. Several thousand photos can take an hour or more by cable, and a cloud backup of a large library can take overnight. Start it when you do not need either phone urgently.

Do I need to keep the same phone number or SIM?

No. Photo transfers have nothing to do with your SIM or phone number. They work over cable, Wi-Fi, or your cloud account, regardless of which SIM is in either phone.

What is the best method overall?

For most people, the cable transfer during Android setup: full quality, no cloud storage limits, and it moves your photos as part of setting up the new phone. If setup is already done, Google Photos is the easiest fallback, as long as you check the quality setting first.

A Final Word

Switching from iPhone to Android does not have to mean starting your photo collection from scratch. Pick the method that matches your priorities — cable for quality and completeness, Google Photos for ease, a computer for control — accept the honest trade-offs around Live Photos and albums, and keep the old phone until you have checked the new gallery with your own eyes. Your memories made the journey; make sure they arrive intact. 🙂