How to Get Photos and Videos From an iPhone to a Windows PC

If everyone in your house used Apple devices, you’d just AirDrop it. But the moment a Windows PC is involved, AirDrop is out, and the alternatives aren’t obvious.

Here are the options we’d actually recommend, depending on how much you’re moving.

Option 1: the cable (best for your whole camera roll)

If you want to move hundreds or thousands of photos at once, a USB cable is still the most reliable way.

1. Plug the iPhone into the PC.
2. Unlock the phone and tap Trust when it asks about the computer.
3. On Windows, open the Photos app and choose Import, or open File Explorer, find the iPhone under This PC, and browse into Internal Storage → DCIM.

Two common snags:

• HEIC files. iPhones save photos as HEIC by default. Older Windows setups can’t open them without the free HEIF extension from the Microsoft Store. Alternatively, on the iPhone go to Settings → Photos and under Transfer to Mac or PC pick Automatic, which converts them to JPEG during the transfer.
• The import stalls halfway. This is usually the phone locking itself. Keep it unlocked, or temporarily set Auto-Lock to Never in Settings → Display & Brightness.

Option 2: over Wi-Fi in the browser (best for a few big files)

When it’s one long video or a handful of files, a cable is a hassle, especially if you’re not in the same room or don’t have the right cable. A browser-based transfer works without installing anything on either side.

With BoltShare:

1. On the iPhone, open boltshare.in in Safari.
2. Tap to choose files. You can pick from Photos or from the Files app.
3. A share link appears. Copy it and get it onto the PC: message or email it to yourself, or just type it into the PC’s browser (it’s short).
4. Click Accept on the PC. The file downloads straight from the phone.

Some tips from experience:

• Keep Safari open and the screen on until the PC says it’s done. iOS pauses web pages the moment you switch apps or lock the phone, so the transfer stops too. We cover this more in keeping a transfer running.
• Want the untouched original? iOS sometimes hands websites a converted copy of a photo (JPEG instead of HEIC) or a more compatible version of a video. If you need the exact original file, first save it to the Files app (Share → Save to Files), then pick it from Files rather than Photos.
• Same Wi-Fi is fastest. If the phone and PC are on the same home network, choose Direct P2P mode. The data can go straight across your network instead of out to the internet and back.

This route is ideal for sending a 4K video. iPhone 4K footage runs to roughly 170 to 400 MB per minute depending on format and frame rate, so a ten-minute clip is several gigabytes. That’s well past what email or messaging apps will accept.

Option 3: iCloud Photos for Windows

If you already pay for iCloud storage and keep your library there, Apple’s iCloud for Windows app can sync your photos down to the PC automatically. It’s convenient for ongoing access, but slow for a one-off: everything has to upload from the phone to iCloud first, then download to the PC. And if your library is bigger than your iCloud plan, it won’t all be there.

Option 4: Google Photos, OneDrive, Dropbox

These all have iPhone apps that back up your camera roll, and you can then grab the files on the PC. Same trade-off as iCloud: great for continuous backup, slow and storage-hungry for a single transfer.

Going the other way

Sending from the PC to the iPhone works with the browser method too. Just be aware that very large downloads are less reliable on an iPhone than on a computer. Safari tends to hold the whole file in memory before saving it, so multi-gigabyte files can fail on phones with less memory. For big files headed to an iPhone, the cable (or a cloud service) is the safer bet.