Moving photos from any phone to a Windows 10 PC can be tedious. Fortunately, Microsoft̵
Microsoft’s Your Phone app is pre-installed on many Windows 10 laptops and desktops. It can also mirror notifications from your Android device, send and receive text messages on your PC, and sync photos. The latter is useful if you’d rather skip a cloud storage service and don’t want to connect your phone to your PC with a cable.
To use the Your Phone app on Windows and Android:
- Your computer must have Windows 10 April 2018 Update or later installed.
- Your Android device must be running Android 7.0 or higher.
We’ve outlined the entire setup process for your phone so make sure to follow this guide before you start syncing photos.
RELATED: How to pair an Android phone to a Windows 10 PC with Microsoft’s “Your Phone” app
Syncing photos between Android and Windows with your phone requires very little installation. You just need to make sure that you allow the Your Phone Companion app to access your photos.
During the installation process, simply tap “Allow” when the Companion app asks for access to your Android photos, media and files. This is required for photo transfers.
Another popup will ask for your permission to run the Your Phone Companion app in the background; tap ‘Allow’. This ensures that it stays connected to your PC and always shows the latest photos.
After these two permissions are granted, the feature is ready to use. In the Your Phone app on your Windows PC, click the Photos tab.
Then select a photo from the gallery. You can also click “Refresh” to search for new photos.
Tip: If you don’t see any photos in the “Photos” tab, just click “View Photos” to enable that feature.
When a photo is open, you will see the following options at the top of the screen:
- “Open”: Opens the photo in the Windows photo viewer.
- “To copy”: Copies the image to your Windows clipboard.
- “Save as”: Save the photo to a folder on your Windows PC.
- “Share”: Opens the Windows Share menu, where you can choose a method to share the photo directly.
- The three-dot menu: Gives you the option to open the photo in another app.
That’s all there is to it! The feature syncs photos surprisingly fast if you have a good internet connection. If you don’t like cloud storage apps, this is a nice alternative to easily move photos between your phone and PC.
