How to get photos off an old phone

Updated October 20, 2026

If you have an old phone with photos on it, the usual route is to charge it, connect it to a computer with a cable, unlock it and copy the photos across. It takes about as long as the phone takes to start up, plus the copy.

Before you do that, check whether the photos are already in iCloud or Google Photos. If they are, you may not need the phone at all. Don’t wipe or reset the phone either way until you know every photo is safe somewhere else.

Before you start

A charger and cable that fit the phone. Some cables only charge and can’t carry files. If the computer doesn’t see the phone, try another cable.
The phone’s passcode or PIN.
Free space on your computer or a drive for all the photos. A phone can hold tens of gigabytes.
Time. Thousands of photos and videos can take an hour or more.

Charge the phone, and the passcode problem

Old phones often have drained batteries. Plug the phone in and leave it for at least 30 minutes before you try to turn it on. A swollen or hot battery is a reason to stop and not charge it.

You need the passcode to get at the photos. A computer can’t see a locked phone. Microsoft’s guide says plainly that a PC can’t find the device if it’s locked.

If you’ve forgotten the passcode, be careful. For an iPhone, Apple’s guidance is to reset the phone, which erases it, or, if you changed the passcode recently, to use the old one within 72 hours. Erasing the phone also erases the photos stored only on it. If you can’t remember the passcode, try the ones you used at the time and stop before the phone locks itself out. If the photos matter and you don’t have a backup, get advice before you reset anything.

iPhone to a Mac

Connect the iPhone to the Mac with a USB cable.
If the Mac asks to let the accessory connect, click Allow.
Unlock the iPhone. If it asks Trust This Computer?, tap Trust and enter the passcode. If you once tapped Don’t Trust, go to Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Reset > Reset Location & Privacy and the prompt will come back.
Open the Photos app on the Mac. If the Import screen doesn’t appear, click the iPhone’s name in the sidebar.
Choose Import All New Items, or select photos and click Import Selected.
Wait for it to finish before you unplug anything.

The Image Capture app on the Mac is another option. It saves photos as plain files into a folder you choose, which can be easier to hand on.

iPhone to a Windows PC

Install the Apple Devices app from the Microsoft Store.
Connect the iPhone with a USB cable, and unlock it.
Tap Trust or Allow on the iPhone when it asks.
Open the Photos app on the PC, choose Import, then choose your iPhone and follow the prompts.

If photos won’t open afterward, they may be in the HEIC format. Microsoft says you may need to install the HEIF and HEVC extensions from the Microsoft Store.

Apple adds one caution. If iCloud Photos is on, the phone may hold only small versions, with the originals in iCloud. Photos stored only in iCloud may not download over USB, and Microsoft says to use iCloud for Windows for those.

Android over USB

Unlock the phone and connect it to the computer with a USB cable.
On the phone, tap the Charging this device via USB notification.
Under Use USB for, choose File Transfer.
On the computer, open the phone when it appears as a drive. Google’s steps cover Windows and Chromebook only. A Mac can’t browse an Android phone on its own, and Google’s old Mac app is no longer offered. See below for a Mac.
Open the phone’s storage and copy the folders that hold photos. The main one is usually DCIM, which holds the camera photos and videos. Check Pictures too, for screenshots and saved images, and look for WhatsApp or other app folders.

Google notes that some of these steps only work on Android 14 and up, so the wording on an older phone may differ. On a Windows PC you can instead use the Photos app and choose Import.

Folder names vary between makers, so copy the whole of DCIM and Pictures rather than picking through them.

Android to a Mac

Samsung Galaxy phones: install Samsung’s free Smart Switch for Mac. Connect the phone, tap Allow on it, then click Backup in Smart Switch. Photos and videos are among the things it backs up.
Other Android phones: the simplest free route is to back the photos up to Google Photos and download them from photos.google.com, or to use a Windows PC. Browsing the phone directly from a Mac needs a third-party app.

Old iPhone backups

If an old computer has an iPhone backup on it, it holds the photos, but not in a form you can browse. A backup is a folder of files with coded names. You can’t open it and look at pictures. Only the phone, or special software, can read it back.

To see which backups exist, open Finder on a Mac (or the Apple Devices app or iTunes on a PC), connect an iPhone, and go to General > Manage Backups. You’ll see each backup’s date. Don’t delete one: Apple warns that a deleted backup can’t be recovered. Right-click a backup and choose Archive to protect it, or Show in Finder to see where it lives.

If photos exist only in a backup, restoring it to a phone is the usual way back. That’s a job to hand over rather than try yourself.

Check iCloud and Google Photos first

iCloud: go to icloud.com/photos and sign in with the Apple Account the phone used. Choose Library to see everything. If it’s empty, you may be signed in to the wrong account.
Google Photos: go to photos.google.com and sign in. The backup status appears at the top of your library. On a phone, photos that are backed up carry a Backed up tag. Google notes that the app shows photos on the device whether or not they’re backed up, so seeing a photo doesn’t prove it’s saved.

Messaging-app photos

Photos you sent or received in a chat don’t always end up in your camera roll.

WhatsApp on Android saves media to a WhatsApp folder in the phone’s internal storage (or on the SD card if there’s no internal storage), unless saving was turned off in Settings > Chats. You’ll see it when you browse the phone over USB.
WhatsApp on iPhone and Signal keep photos inside the app. Whether they were also saved to the Photos app depends on the settings used at the time. Open the app on the phone and check, or ask me to.

If you need chats, don’t uninstall the apps.

When to stop and get help

Stop if the phone is swollen, hot or won’t charge, if it’s water-damaged, or if the screen is broken so you can’t enter the passcode. Get advice before you reset anything. A physically damaged phone may need a specialist repair or recovery service.

If you’re a Photo Organizing Co client

Bring the phone, its charger and the passcode. If it’s an iPhone, be ready to sign in to its Apple Account yourself. Don’t factory reset the phone, delete apps, or delete photos beforehand. I’ll copy everything off and hand the phone back to you as I found it.